Power to Burn (3 page)

I wish I could just magick the two of us right away from here. Somewhere tropical, or even snow-bound, where we could be snug inside a cabin with a fire and rugs and all that white world stretching before us like a new page. But I'm not up to that yet. I hope I am soon. Before anything happens.

Maybe if I didn't answer now, Mamma would think I'd already gone. I wheeled my bike quietly out of the courtyard.

The apartment window above shot up and there was Mamma, waving. ‘Lucrezia, come here this moment!' She flapped her tea towel imperiously at me.

‘Coming!' There was no escape now.

But as I trudged up the three flights of stairs, I began to smile. I'd just thought of a way to entertain la professoressa Bongiorno.

There were cakes on the coffee table and a box of chocolates wrapped up with a red shiny bow. La professoressa handed them to me and fluttered, ‘For good luck in your exams,
cara
!' She smelled strongly of face powder, and there were little red smears of lipstick like blood on her teeth.

‘Oh,
thank
you,
signora
,' I fluttered back, and undid the red bow.

Now a sudden breeze buffeted in through the window, tossing the curtains and slamming the door. The
signora
jumped up with surprise, spilling some coffee on the floor.

‘
Scusa
, I'm so sorry, oh look what I've done!' she cried.

‘
Niente
, don't worry!' my mother soothed, and she settled the
signora
back in her chair. Now I put the chocolate box on the table beside her.

‘Do have one,' I urged.

As la professoressa looked into the box, ten little green frogs sat nestling in their red paper cups. Suddenly they leapt out of the box and on to her knees. She clapped her hands.

‘Oh,
magnifico
, how sweet, how did you
do
that, Lucrezia?'

I winked at my mother who stared at the frogs, stony-faced.

The little frogs jumped down onto the floor and hopped amongst our feet. Their tiny throats moved in and out as they croaked, high and thin as crickets.

‘Oh, Lucrezia, you must put on a magic show for us all sometime. She really is very talented, you know, Francesca,' she said confidingly, turning to my mother. ‘Such an unusual hobby for a girl.'

Mamma smiled politely and flicked a frog off her shoe.

La professoressa exclaimed and cooed and drank her coffee for another half hour before she struggled out of her chair. She was to join another friend for the daily
passeggiata
, when people meet to talk and walk along the shop fronts of our town.

As the door closed behind her, Mamma exploded. ‘Why do you keep
doing
these things,
figlia mia
! How many times have I told you that it must stop?' She was wringing her hands as if someone had just died.

‘Oh, that silly
signora
, you know she thinks I just pull tricks out of a hat. She wouldn't know real magic if she tripped over it.'

‘Yes, for now, but one day you may go too far.' She began pacing the room, her heels clicking loudly on the marble floor.

‘Look out, I cried, ‘you're stepping on a frog!'

‘Revolting things,' she spat, ‘and they're only illusions, anyway.' She picked up a frog and pricked it with her finger nail. It burst like a bubble, leaving just a green smear in the air. The little cup of red paper floated to the floor. ‘You can't magick flesh and blood yet, can you?'

‘No, but if you'd only leave me in peace I could practise. Oh, Mamma, I know I have it inside me! I could conjure up fabulous things: flowers in the desert, love between enemies, I could learn to fly –'

Mamma's mouth tightened. ‘And then what would become of you? “The Weird Woman of Firenze” they'd call you. A
witch
. Who would want to be your friend? Or your
husband
? No man would marry a woman who could fly away from him. Put a spell on him. Be more powerful than him! Listen, I
know
. You'd be alone all your life.'

She put her hands on my shoulders and swung me round. I was trembling. I didn't know if I was angry or afraid. But my heart was pounding.

‘And worse than all of that,
figlia mia
,' Mamma's voice became a whisper, ‘is the darkness you may find within yourself.'

I flung away from her.

‘You don't understand, Mamma,' I said. ‘I want to create magnificent things. I have colours in my head, new colours that no one has dreamed of before. There's no room for darkness in me – I'm like a bird about to fly, I'm full of light and wind and sun!'

‘You have love in your heart,
amore
,' my mother said softly. ‘Why not be content with that?'

I smiled. I thought of Fabio's dark eyes and the night falling softly outside.

‘I'm very late,' I said. ‘Fabio is expecting me. We have some Dante to read.'

‘And secrets to share,' Mamma smiled. ‘Off you go then, and give my regards to his mother.
Ciao, amore
.'

I kissed Mamma and ran outside into the warm dusk. As I pedalled along the narrow streets my heart rose up and flew with the pigeons circling the towers of our square.

That night I crept into bed quietly, so as not to wake my little sister, Cornelia. I wanted to savour my evening, and the moment when we were alone on his doorstep. ‘Remember me always,' Fabio had whispered as he kissed me goodnight. And he gave me the thin gold band he wore on his fifth finger.

‘You're home late,' Cornelia's voice splintered the silence. ‘Mamma and Papa were worried. Is their light still on?'

I sighed. Cornelia is just three years younger than me, but sometimes she acts like a little policewoman. Right and wrong, black and white,
Dio
, she lives in a simple world. She is so stuck under Mamma's thumb, I worry whether she'll ever crawl out and be herself.

‘
Sì
, Cornelia, I spoke to Mamma. Everything is all right. Go back to sleep.'

‘I wasn't asleep. Did you have a good time? What did you have for dinner? We had
spaghetti all' aglio e olio
.'

‘We had
pasta al forno
, and it was
buonissimo
. And Fabio kissed me goodnight.'

Cornelia choked with delight. Oh I do love it when she laughs and hiccups at the same time – sometimes she enjoys herself so much she forgets to swallow!

I giggled with her and we held hands for a moment across the space between our beds.

Now she wanted to know everything. ‘What do you do about breathing when you kiss a boy? Do you hold your breath like when you're under water?'

I explained a few essential facts to her and when she was satisfied I heard her yawn and turn over.

Just as I thought she was drifting off to sleep, she said something that sent a chill up my spine.

‘Tonight, just after dinner, two policemen came to the door. They were asking about Fabio's father. Something about his work at the university. The Treasury. Is anything wrong?'

I tossed the sheets away. My body felt hot and sweat broke out over my chest. I didn't want to think about it. No. I wanted to think only about tonight. When we were safe and close in each other's arms.

But the uneasiness was crawling inside my head, pricking my skin.

‘What did they want? Papa doesn't teach at that university anymore. What did he say?'

‘I don't know, Lu. Mamma sent me out of the room to do the washing up. But she looked shocked, and Papa's face went all serious and closed, you know how reserved he gets.'

For weeks now, ever since Fabio announced that he and his family were moving away, I'd been trying not to think about our separation. I wanted to enjoy the time we had left, to concentrate on all the moments we could share.

But now, as I shut my eyes, I saw a pattern forming, like a jigsaw puzzle. I saw the piece with Fabio telling me about the move, and his family sitting at the table around him. I saw his father's face and the quick shadow that passed over his eyes. And I saw the piece that came later, when Fabio told me that he didn't believe his father had been promoted to another university.

‘He's in some kind of trouble, but he won't tell me what it is.'

And now the final piece was slotted in. Fabio's father,
dottor
Fiorelli, must have done something illegal with the treasury funds. Maybe it had been going on for ages if the police were questioning my father about the time he worked with
dottor
Fiorelli. I wondered if Fiorelli was really just running away, and taking his family with him.

‘You'll probably get long romantic letters from Fabio when he's gone,' Cornelia said now. ‘They say you can learn more about a person from what he writes than what he says.'

‘Which magazine did you read that in?' Cornelia was trying to be comforting, I know, but her words sent another jolt of fear through me. ‘Come on, let's go to sleep now, it's so late.
Buona notte
.'

‘
Buona notte
.'

I could just imagine the kind of letters Fabio would write now, with all this family trouble. His words might be affectionate to me, but distant, and he would close off about his family, the thing that was really worrying him. He would never write about his father, put down on paper anything that was shameful, secret. He was too loyal, too proud.

Suddenly I couldn't bear it. I couldn't stand the idea of being shut off from Fabio, of not being able to run to him and put my face into his smooth neck and draw in great breaths of him.

I felt the tears running sideways down into my hair.
I'm not going to let it happen
, I decided. Then I sat up in bed and almost laughed out loud.

I'll ask Mamma if Fabio can stay here with us when his family goes. That's it! I know she will understand. And I'll think of good reasons, too, logical reasons. The final exams will soon be here – how can he start a new school, in a new city and do exams at the same time? These are the exams that will determine his future! And then afterwards, when there's no more school, we'll both be free to make plans, our
own
plans.

I snuggled back down into the pillows and smiled in the dark. How wonderful to have Fabio here at breakfast each morning! I could buy a new silk nightgown, white, and wear my hair down and loose, swooping over the coffee cups. I would be irresistible! I could conjure up fresh gardenias and leave them on his dressing table at night. I could make the moonlight shine in his window and wrap silver ribbons around his bed.

I closed my eyes and as I floated into sleep I saw a long road stretching ahead of me. Way off in the distance, at the end of the road, I saw myself running, faster and faster until my feet lifted off the ground and I was flying. I looked down and saw people like beetles, scurrying and arguing and hauling things and then there was Fabio, standing alone. His arms reached out and I pulled him up and the wind rushed past our faces, sweeping us into the sky like shooting stars.

I
stuffed my hand luggage into the locker above and sat down in seat 51A. A window seat. That's a good sign, I told myself.

The stewardess was now showing us the exit doors and demonstrating how to pull the oxygen mask down from the ceiling. I wish they wouldn't do that. Don't they realise there are people on board trying to be optimistic? I did a quick check around to see who would help me if I got the mask tangled.

Seeing the oxygen mask made me think of Virginia Westhead. When Virginia heard that I was going to Italy, she brought out her piece on aeroplane disasters. ‘Two years ago,' she said grimly, ‘312 people were killed when the same plane as you're taking crashed in the Pennine Alps. They recovered all the bodies except one, and they found
him
six months later, all in one piece except for the wolf bites. It was the ice of course that kept the body intact. Have a good time, Roberto, and why don't you lose your red socks while you're away?'

For the twenty-sixth time I reached into my pockets and felt for my passport, my wallet, travellers' cheques, rabbit's foot (you never know), and my keys. My heart lurched. What did I bring my
keys
for? I wouldn't be needing them for weeks: six weeks and two days, to be exact. What if they fell out somewhere, my poor lonely keys, stranded in some muddy gutter on the other side of the world? I'd never be able to get back into our house. I saw myself wandering through unknown lands, the soles of my shoes thinning and my hair receding as I spent a lifetime looking down drains and through rubbish bins.

I was a nervous wreck and we'd only just left the ground.

Of course I knew that if I lost my keys I only needed to knock on the door. Of course I knew
that
. And anyway, Dad was going to meet me at the airport on my return. I wished I was on my way back instead of forward!

My heart lurched again at the thought of where I was going and I started to sweat. I tried to turn on those little air-conditioning doodahs on the ceiling above but the man next to me gave me a look, so I gave up. Sure as eggs,
he
wouldn't help me if I got the mask tangled.

It wasn't that I wanted to stay in the air, I just didn't want to arrive. Maybe the plane could be swept into some miraculous pleat in the universe, you know, like the place where all the lost socks and library books go, and we could just float around, like a big dust particle in eternal suspension.

Because there was something horribly final about arriving. Like thudding down on another planet.

‘They're your
grandparents
, Roberto,' Mum had said. ‘I grew up in Italy, your own mother! In no time you'll feel at home there. And it'll be a lovely change for you. It's such a beautiful country.'

I'd asked then that if it was such a beautiful country, how come we'd never been back for a visit?
All
of us?