Kal (47 page)

‘You stay here and help your Mamma.'

Teresa shrugged. She didn't need help and she was not going to enter the argument. What was the point? Rico would give in to Carmelina anyway, he always did.

‘But that's not fair, Papa.' Carmelina was on the verge of tears. ‘I work so hard at Restaurant Picot, you know I do.'

That was it, Teresa thought, that was the argument which always won him around. Carmelina never actually mentioned the substantial weekly contributions she made to the household finances but it was an argument that couldn't really be refuted. Even Rico had to admit that the girl earned the right to do as she wished on her day off.

‘Sunday is my special day.' She was wheedling now, she knew he was weakening. ‘Please, Papa.' Her hand was around his shoulders, any minute she would sit on his lap and nuzzle up to him as she used to do when she was a little girl.

‘Go on,' he said gruffly. ‘Off with you. And don't be late.'

‘I won't.' She kissed the top of his head. ‘Bye, Papa, bye, Mamma, bye, Salvatore.' And she was gone, leaving Salvatore shaking his head in admiration.

 

I
T WAS A
pleasant Sunday. It always was when Caterina
and Giovanni and their two daughters came to visit. If, somehow, a little bittersweet for Teresa. When she looked at Caterina, as beautiful as ever, Teresa could not help but feel a deep envy. It was easy for Caterina to remain beautiful, she told herself—Caterina's firstborn son was not at war. There were no visions in Caterina's mind of a bloodied Paolo dying an agonising death on foreign soil.

Again and again she would shake her envy from her. Dear Caterina was so caring. And Giovanni loved to read aloud the letters Enrico sent him. The boy was closer to Giovanni than he was to his own father.

Teresa knew that Giovanni censored the letters as he read them but even so they revealed an intimacy Enrico could never have shared with his father. It was good, Teresa thought. Enrico was a sensitive boy and he needed a man to whom he could reveal his innermost thoughts. But she cursed her own illiteracy. If only her son could write to her like that.

There were no letters to read aloud this Sunday so they rejoiced in the fact that the troops had been evacuated from Gallipoli. Before eating, Teresa, Caterina and Giovanni sat and discussed the newspaper reports whilst Rico smoked a pipe and refused to join in.

Outside, in the gathering dusk, Salvatore sat and watched his cousins play hopscotch on the dusty pavement. ‘Nah, that's a girl's game,' he insisted from the comfort of the front verandah when Briony asked him to play. Secretly, he would have rather liked to join in, it might have led to some chance contact with Briony. When he'd tackled her in the football game they'd played last visit, he'd actually felt her breasts, unintentionally of course, and he couldn't wait to repeat the experience. But it would be more than his life was worth if any of his mates saw him playing hopscotch with girls.

Briony was nine months older than Salvatore—she
would be sixteen early next year—and she too would have preferred not to play hopscotch, it was a game for babies, but she'd promised Rosalina. She threw the taw into the first square. ‘Just the one game, Rosie,' she said.

‘Do you want to play football instead?' Salvatore asked hopefully.

‘No,' she replied with a touch of regret. ‘This is a new dress, Mum'd be mad.'

Salvatore had noticed the new dress. It suited her. She looked very pretty. But then Briony always looked pretty, even in her old dungarees. She had a body verging on womanhood. Budding and healthy. Her eyes were as blue as the sky on a summer's day and her hair was as red as the outback earth itself. But it wasn't just because she was pretty that Salvatore liked her. Briony wasn't like other girls. She didn't giggle and tease and she didn't play devious games like his sister. Briony always said exactly what she thought. She was more like a boy in that regard. Briony was bold and Salvatore respected her for that.

It was only over the past several months that Salvatore had really come to know Briony. Only since Carmelina had been working at the restaurant. Before that, when the two Gianni families gathered, Carmelina and Briony would huddle together to talk, ignoring Salvatore for the most part. But that had changed now that Carmelina was away all the time, working at the restaurant or with her girlfriends on Sundays.

‘I was born out in the scrub. In a humpy. And my mother nearly died.' That's what Briony had told him when they'd sat on the verandah after their football game and swigged water from the old hessian water bag which hung from a nail by the door. He'd been impressed.

Salvatore watched the game of hopscotch impatiently. He wished they'd hurry up so he and Briony
could sit and talk before they were called in for dinner.

Briony was thinking the same thing. ‘That's it, Rosie, you've won.' She made it a habit to let her little sister win every third game. ‘Go inside and wash your hands, it'll be dinner soon.'

Rosalina did as she was told and Briony joined Salvatore on the porch. ‘Where's Carmelina?' she asked.

‘At Maria's.'

‘Oh.'

‘I thought there was going to be a fight to start with,' Salvatore continued. ‘“Stay here and entertain your cousins”, that's what he said. But she got around him. She always gets around Papa. I don't know how she does it, but she does.'

There was a moment's pause whilst Briony gazed up at the sky. It would be night soon. A clear night, and the stars would be very, very bright. She loved such nights. ‘Rosalina's your cousin,' she said.

‘Yes, I know,' Salvatore replied, mystified.

‘I'm not.' When he looked blankly back at her, she added, ‘Giovanni is not my father, I'm not your cousin.'

Of course, he realised, she was right. It had never occurred to him before.

‘I'm not related to you at all, Salvatore.'

He stared back at her, but her gaze had returned to the sky. ‘The stars are going to be very, very bright tonight,' she said, then got up and walked inside.

After dinner, Giovanni played his piano accordion and they all sang. Just like old times, they agreed. Except that Giovanni himself did not sing. ‘My voice is weary,' he said, ‘it would not sound good,' and he encouraged the others to sing instead.

Giovanni, too, had aged, Teresa thought. He was as handsome as ever, perhaps even more so, his youthful beauty now hardy and weathered—why was it, she wondered, that life's experience sat so well upon the face
of a man and not upon that of a woman?—but he had certainly aged.

Rico got drunk. Harmlessly so, but drunk nonetheless. Filled with brotherly love, he toasted Giovanni. ‘To the finest brother a man could have.' He toasted Teresa. ‘To the only woman I have ever loved.' He toasted the family. ‘To the Giannis, a name to bear with pride.' And the only time he became even mildly aggressive was when he berated Carmelina for not being present. ‘A night such as this, the girl should be with her family,' he muttered. ‘With her own blood.' And he raised his glass once more. ‘To the Giannis!'

 

C
ARMELINA'S SENSES WERE
screaming. Every inch of her body had been explored, it seemed, and yet still she was left wanting. Her flesh trembled where tongues had teased and fingers had touched. She'd been played upon intimately and expertly and now she begged him to give her the final release.

‘Please, Louis, please,' she moaned, her body writhing on the pink satin sheets, her face turned to him imploringly.

He sat, fully clothed, beside the door, watching in the soft rose-coloured light as the two whores knelt over her. One of them looked at him, a question in her eyes. He shook his head imperceptibly.

‘Soon, my darling, soon,' he said. ‘You're so beautiful.'

Through the haze of her pleasure, she could see him watching her. He was touching himself. He wanted her, she thought. He was deeply aroused and soon it would be just the two of them, making love. Carmelina would do anything for Louis, anything that excited him and made him love her.

At first it had been the forbidden thrill of making
love in a brothel. ‘At Red Ruby's,' he'd whispered, ‘I hear they have satin sheets and rose-coloured lights, it is a pleasure palace.' He'd kissed her and assured her that no one would find out. ‘It would excite me,' he'd said and the mere mention of his excitement had aroused Carmelina.

Then it had been a whore to caress her whilst he watched. If it pleased him, she thought, where was the harm? And, just recently, it had become two whores to play upon her body until she abandoned her senses. And if that was what Louis wanted, if that was what made him love her, then Carmelina was more than willing to abandon herself.

‘Please, Louis, please,' she implored and, finally, he nodded to the whores who quickly gathered their robes and left as quietly as they'd arrived.

He crossed to her and lowered his trousers. He didn't bother to fully undress. It wasn't necessary, she would climax as soon as he entered her.

‘My darling,' he murmured, pretending a haste he didn't feel as she groaned her ecstasy.

Louis would rather have remained watching. There were many more carnal pleasures Carmelina had yet to be taught, many more thresholds yet to be overcome. And Louis would derive his own pleasure from watching her learn. But, for now, she required that he serve her. He was a patient man, he could bide his time and the waiting would be well worth his while, Louis knew it.

‘When do you leave?'

‘The day after Boxing Day.'

‘So soon?'

It was Christmas Eve, late afternoon, and Paolo had come to say goodbye. He and Ira were sitting, huddled beside the oil heater, in the parlour of the boarding house where Ira Rubenstein rented his cheap room.

Both young men had successfully passed their final examinations in May and were now qualified mining engineers. Ira, however, having returned to New York to spend the summer vacation with his parents, was now back at Harvard to complete his masters degree.

Upon graduation Paolo had agreed, with a reluctance he concealed, not wishing to appear ungrateful, to work for six months at the offices of Dunleavy and Company, Mining Consultants.

‘We'll call it an apprenticeship, shall we?' Paul Dunleavy had joked. ‘An apprenticeship that starts you at the top—not many graduates get a chance at that, eh?' And Paolo had to admit that he would be a fool to refuse such an opportunity.

To Paul Dunleavy the offer had meant only one thing. Dunleavy and Son, Mining Consultants. After six months in a position of power and with such a proposal
put to him, the boy could hardly yearn for the tin sheds of the Golden Mile and a life in the field with the simple miners of Kalgoorlie. At Christmas, when the six-month ‘apprenticeship' had whetted the boy's appetite, Paul would announce his plans.

Ira had decided to stay in Boston for Christmas. It was too disruptive to go home, he'd maintained, and too expensive.

‘It's paid off,' he said.

Paolo looked a query.

‘Staying in Boston. I've lined up a part-time job at the library, starting early in the New Year. I'll be able to study and save money at the same time.'

‘You're going to be a success, Ira, there's no doubt about that,' Paolo said, toasting his friend with his coffee mug.

‘Bon voyage and bon chance,' Ira replied, raising his own mug. ‘I shall miss you.'

‘And I you.'

They clinked mugs, sipped their coffee and Ira shook his head, as usual. ‘Needs a little assistance,' he said, pulling the familiar hip flask from his pocket.

Paolo smiled and accepted the generous tot of rum which Ira poured into his mug. ‘I can't stay long,' he apologised. ‘I promised I'd spend Christmas Eve with the Dunleavys.'

Paul Dunleavy had been a little critical when Paolo had announced he was going out to see his university friends—the only lie was the plural, Paolo had reasoned. ‘Christmas Eve is not a time for gallivanting about, Paolo, it is a time to be shared with those closest to you,' he had said. ‘I shall expect you home for a family dinner.'

Paolo had felt annoyed. If the festive season was a time to be shared with those closest to him, then he should be at home in Kal. That's what he'd wanted to
say. But he didn't. He never mentioned his family or Kal these days, sensing that it irritated Dunleavy, who had become rather overpossessive. For a long time now, to avoid friction, Paolo had even taken to collecting his mail directly from the maid before she left it on the hall table. That way it was not evident how regularly he was in contact with those at home.

Having agreed to spend Christmas in Boston, Paolo had secretly booked his passage to Australia on the 29th of December. He would depart for New York on the 27th and, grateful as he was to Paul Dunleavy, no amount of emotional blackmail would make him change his mind. Paolo was going home to Caterina and Giovanni and his sisters.

During his years in America, Paolo Gianni's commitment to his studies had helped him avoid undue homesickness but, now that he had completed his degree, Boston had lost its hold over him. Beautiful as the city was, he found himself longing to escape its formality. He yearned for the untidiness of the Australian outback, the scruffiness of the red landscape and the careless drawl of the people. Ice and snow had lost their fascination, Paolo wanted the ferocity of the Kalgoorlie sun.

‘You're really serious about joining the army?' Ira asked as he topped up their coffees and added more rum. ‘You're going to war?'

‘Yes.' Paolo had recently received a letter from Rick, who told him the troops were pulling out of Gallipoli.

‘… We are leaving so many men on these shores, Paolo,' Rick had written, ‘men who have fought for their country with such fervour and men I am proud to have owned as friends …'

Now, more than ever, Paolo was determined to join the army.

‘You think I'm a fool don't you?'

‘Of course I do, a war could kill you.' Ira shrugged. ‘Why court trouble?'

Paolo laughed. ‘That's a very Jewish outlook,' he said.

‘So? It's how we survive.'

They drank two more mugs of rum-laced coffee before Paolo insisted it was time he left. ‘You must come to Kal one day, Ira.'

‘Perhaps I will,' Ira agreed. ‘An engineering degree makes the world a much smaller place. Who knows when or where we may meet again.' And, when they'd embraced, he added, ‘You take care with your war, Paolo.'

Paul Dunleavy was a little irritated when Paolo returned half an hour later than he'd promised, with rum on his breath too. Then Paul chastised himself. He was only annoyed because he was excited. Tonight was the night he would make his announcement. He had deliberately chosen Christmas Eve, which had always been a very special night in his family. But he must be patient. He had everything planned so perfectly, he must not rush it.

 

‘I
REMEMBER
C
HRISTMAS
Eves just like this when I was a child,' Paul said. He was comfortably nestled in his favourite armchair, the one which had been his father's, his legs stretched out towards the open fire, his tumbler of Scotch on the coffee table beside him. ‘My parents and I would sit around the fire, just like this.'

Meg exchanged a smile with Paolo. She adored her father but as they both knew, he always waxed lyrical about the family on Christmas Eve.

‘My mother would play the pianola,' Paul continued, ‘and my father would sing. A fine, bold voice, do you remember, Elizabeth?'

Elizabeth, in her customary seat at the bay windows, looked up from her petit point and nodded. ‘Yes, a bold
voice.' Bold, certainly, she thought. Quenton Dunleavy had bawled his favourite hymns with such fervour, and never once baulked when he hit a wrong note, that Elizabeth's mother-in-law would wince as she valiantly accompanied him on the pianola.

‘You will play some Christmas carols for us after dinner, won't you, my dear?' Paul asked. He was proud of his wife's musical virtuosity, it was a sign of good breeding. A number of years ago he had purchased for her a grand piano which stood in pride of place in the drawing room.

‘Of course I will.'

‘Excellent.' He rose to pour himself another Scotch. ‘And we shall all sing along. Would you like another, Paolo?' he asked, offering the whisky decanter.

‘No thank you, sir.'

‘Best not to mix, eh, son? I'm sorry I have no rum.' His smile was good-natured and there was no censure in his tone. Paolo smiled back. The one whisky he'd had was mingling unpleasantly with the rum and he was feeling a little queasy.

Elizabeth declined another dry sherry but Meg held out her glass and Paul topped it to the brim. He was feeling very mellow after his third Scotch. But Christmas Eve was a time to be mellow, and this Christmas Eve more so than any other.

As he sat and talked of his father and his grandfather, Paul felt an immense pride in the tradition of the Dunleavy family. ‘I remember my father sitting in this very armchair—of course we weren't in this house then,' he added, ‘we were in the old family home at Beacon Hill—and I can remember him telling me of his own childhood.'

Again Meg smiled at Paolo. Her father was waxing even more lyrical than usual. But then this was his fourth whisky, he usually only had two.

‘Every Christmas Eve my grandfather would take my father skating on Jamaica Pond and on the way home they would follow the carol singers—at a discreet distance of course—and they would sing together. As father and son, you understand,' he corrected hastily, ‘not with the group.' He shook his head with affectionate admiration. ‘Such a bond,' he sighed. ‘Such a bond between father and son.'

Loath as he was to admit it, there had never been quite such a bond between Paul and his father, and Paul had never really been able to understand why. He'd always felt he'd been a bit of a disappointment to Quenton.

Now he looked at Paolo. The men of whom he was speaking were none other than Paolo's own grandfather and great-grandfather—did the boy comprehend that? Probably not; he and Paolo had not once spoken of Paolo's inclusion in the family since he had been in Boston. Well, all that was about to change. From this night onwards, Paolo Gianni would have a family to proud of and he, Paul Dunleavy, would have a son with whom he could forge a bond, just like the bond between his father and grandfather.

‘I remember my father telling me once that he and his father—'

‘They're here, Daddy.' Meg jumped up and Paul scowled at the interruption. ‘They're here. Listen.'

Outside, through the falling snow, they could hear the strains of ‘Good King Wenceslas' approaching.

‘Ah.' Paul rose, annoyance forgotten, and collected his scarf and overcoat from the hall stand. The singing of Christmas carols was very much a part of the traditional festivities. As much a part as tomorrow's early morning church service, the distribution of presents around the tree, and the formal Christmas dinner. Tradition, that's what it was all about. And Paul stood with
his family on the front porch, applauding the carol singers gathered on the snowy pavement of Commonwealth Avenue.

‘Can we follow them, Daddy?' Meg asked five minutes later when Paul had distributed a silver coin to each of the singers and the group had crossed the street. She knew Paolo didn't want to go back inside, not just yet anyway. ‘Only for a little while, please?'

Paul looked a question at Elizabeth.

‘Cook will wish to serve dinner in half an hour,' Elizabeth warned.

‘Fifteen minutes. We'll be back in fifteen minutes. Come along, Paolo.' Meg pulled the hood of her jacket over her head, grabbed his hand and they crossed the street through the lightly falling snow.

From the opposite pavement, as they watched the front door close, Meg exhaled a comic sigh of relief. ‘Daddy's worse than ever this Christmas Eve. God only knows why—the whisky I suppose.'

‘It's not doing me any good either, the whisky.' Paolo tilted his head back so that the snow fell upon his face.

‘But you only had one.'

‘And three large measures of rum a few hours ago.' In his slightly bilious state, Paolo had found the Dunleavy lounge room claustrophobic. The sting of the night air was doing him good.

‘Serves you right then.'

He didn't answer but stood, eyes closed, head back, enjoying the snow's caress upon his face and the voices of the carol singers as they moved on down the street.

‘You'll miss this, won't you?' Meg asked after a moment or two. He had told her that he had booked his passage to Australia. ‘But I don't want you to say anything yet, Meg,' he'd warned her. ‘I want to tell your father myself, in my own time.'

Meg had mixed feelings about his imminent departure. It would be good to have her father to herself again, but she would miss Paolo. He was the only man with whom she shared a genuine friendship. More importantly, he was the only man to whom she felt she could surrender her virginity, a sacrifice which, at the age of twenty-two, was becoming an obsession.

‘Men are to marry virgins and women are to marry “men of the world”,' her emancipated girlfriends complained, all in agreement that it hardly constituted equality. ‘Every woman should have a lover before she marries,' they said loudly and outrageously. The only trouble was, thought Meg, who would that lover be? Stephen Sanderson, who with her parents' encouragement had courted her for over a year, had bored her utterly and although many of the boys she met at college attracted her, their overt masculinity and experience frightened her, and she didn't dare allow them more than a chaste kiss, although she would die before she would admit that to her girlfriends.

Paolo was the only one. Paolo from the other side of the world who, even after his years in Boston, was still different, still intriguing. She'd been wondering, for months now, if she dared make an overture towards him.

Meg looked at Paolo, his upturned face thoroughly wet from the snow, unmelted flakes still sitting on his lips and lashes. He looked so eminently seducible, she thought. But how did one go about seduction? She wouldn't know where to begin. Why didn't he make the first move? Damn it to hell, Meg cursed, was she really destined to lose her virginity in the proper manner? The husband, the wedding night, the bridal bed? What was the point of being a modern woman?

‘I said you'll miss all this, won't you?' she repeated. Paolo obviously hadn't heard her, he was in a world of his own.

‘What was that?' He opened his eyes, blinking away the snowflakes.

‘You'll miss it. Boston and the cold and the snow.'

He glanced briefly at her before gazing down Commonwealth Avenue at the carol singers, now several houses along the street. ‘I'm not sure whether I'll miss it,' he said, ‘but I'll certainly remember it. For as long as I live.'

She wasn't quite sure what to make of his tone, it was so serious. But then she often didn't know what to make of Paolo.

‘Let's go inside,' she said, ‘before you catch your death of cold.'

After an excellent dinner, the four of them gathered for Christmas carols in the drawing room, Elizabeth settling herself carefully at the piano stool and playing the opening chords of ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen'. But, several carols later, it was evident that Paul Dunleavy's heart was not truly in it. He kept glancing towards the grandfather clock at the far end of the room.