Remembering Light and Stone (10 page)

There was nothing else for it now. I lifted the letter down from the shelf where I had earlier propped it against a bottle of wine, and ripped it open.

Well, you’d have to have seen other letters from Jimmy to appreciate the difference between them and this one. This letter wasn’t an olive branch, it was a complete olive tree. When Jimmy wrote, he always asked if I was coining home, but it would be framed more along the lines of, ‘I don’t suppose there’s much chance of your taking the trouble to grace us with your presence this summer, I’m sure there are far more exotic places in Italy where you’d rather go.’ Then I’d write back something like ‘You bet, who wants to spend their time in Glasnevin when they could be in Lucca,’ and then I wouldn’t hear from him again for months.

I quickly read over the letter again. There was a sort of heroic ordinariness to Jimmy’s life now that I admired so much. ‘I suppose sometimes I do worry a bit about money, but what can you do?’ I imagined the reality behind that, imagined Jimmy lying awake at night beside Nuala, doing endless calculations in his head, which never worked out exactly as he would have wanted them to. He was utterly steeped in suburban
domesticity
, which in one way was a very straightforward way of life. You could see it mapped out before you for thirty years; though in other ways it was an endless struggle. But what I noticed most of all in the letter was that Jimmy sounded happy. There was the
odd wistful overtone, but generally he sounded like a man who had made the right choice for himself in life and was contented with it. He must have mellowed considerably, as he had enough goodwill left over to extend a little to me. I could see how cautious he was, afraid that I was as prickly and difficult as ever.

And maybe I was. I wouldn’t go home for Christmas. It was too late now anyway, it would be hard to get a flight, and in any case, I had already made plans with Ted for Christmas. But the real reason was that I knew I wouldn’t like Christmas with them, that their way of life wasn’t for me, and it might do more harm than good. I was keen to build on the goodwill Jimmy tentatively offered in the letter, and it made me sad to think that it was still best to do that from a distance. I was the one at fault here, not Jimmy.

As for visiting them the following year, I would have to think about that. I was keen to go to the States with Ted, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to afford two trips, in terms of both time and money. But I decided to write back to Jimmy at once, a nice letter, and I began to think about what I could send the kids for Christmas. Suddenly I remembered how depressed I’d felt when I saw the letter sitting in the post-box, and to think of it now, I felt ashamed.

From early November onwards, Franca and Davide were engaged in a yearly exercise which frayed both their nerves and mine. Even up in my apartment I could hear them shouting and bickering about it. In the commercial equivalent of pouring a gallon into a pint pot, they stocked their shop for Christmas, while retaining a full supply of everyday products. Franca masterminded where the things would go, and bossed Davide around even more than usual.

Such mundane things as tinned tomatoes and bottled passata, flour, pasta and sugar would be arranged in precarious heaps in odd corners of the shop, and the shelves left free would be crammed with chocolates,
pannetone
cakes in the shape of stars and bells; and huge bars of nougat. Franca herself put together gift baskets, with packets of dried wild mushrooms, bottles of olive oil infused with truffle, expensive sweets; all liberally padded beneath with shredded crêpe paper, and embellished on top with star-spangled cellophane, and glossy ribbons. There was a degree of ostentation which in the end didn’t really amount to much. The pictures on the cake-boxes did more than justice to the modest, light fruit-cakes within. The image
promised
more than that, promised happiness, promised Christmas itself for a few thousand lire. Behind all the extravagance was a marked sense of unease. In the past, the local people had had so little that now they were anxious to flaunt their wealth, to prove to themselves as well as to others that their riches were real, and that they could afford luxurious fripperies far beyond the wildest dreams of their grandparents. That there was more show
than substance to many of the things did not bother them a whit, but I had been disappointed the preceding Christmas, when I was given a magnificent blue and gold tin of chocolates, only to find that it was craftily lined in such a way that it was only half full, and there was nothing like as many chocolates as I had hoped or imagined there would be.

Fabiola gave me a huge hamper for Christmas. It wasn’t one of Franca’s confections, it was from a smart café in Perugia. I was embarrassed by the size and splendour of it, and I didn’t feel comfortable taking such a gift from her when I didn’t really like her much. When she called to deliver the hamper, she asked what I would be doing for Christmas. I told her that I would be in S. Giorgio, and then I was going to Venice for a few days at New Year. I asked her what she had planned.

‘We’ll be together for a family Christmas here, and then Pietro and I are going to the Seychelles for ten days.’ She twiddled at the heavy jewellery on her fingers, but didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic about the thought of the holidays.

I told Franca about this later that day, when she called up to see me. She was impressed with the gift, and very amused by the news about the holiday. ‘She must have caught up with him at last then. The whole of S. Giorgio knows that Pietro’s been sleeping with Silvia – you know that woman who owns the perfume shop in Via Cavour? Except for you, Fabiola must be the only person who didn’t know about it.’ Franca was always highly amused by my shortcomings as a gossip, at my slowness to pick up on the crises and scandals that were happening all around me, and my lack of slick delight when I did find out. Even though I didn’t much care for Fabiola, I wasn’t amused to hear that Pietro had cheated on her, and that most of the village was laughing at her.

‘I suppose he’ll be trying to make it up to her all over Christmas‚’ Franca speculated. ‘She’ll do well. Imagine going to the Seychelles for New Year. Still, if she’d been smart, she could have done even better for herself. Do you know Pietro’s brother Riccardo?’ I did. He was also in business in the area, and often called into the factory where I worked. I had done odd bits of
translating for him. He was as stupid as he was rich, and he was very rich.

‘A few years ago,’ Franca said, ‘his wife Marisa found out that he was having an affair with his secretary. She made such a scene – packed up and went back to her mother’s house, taking their little girl with her. Riccardo worships that child. He couldn’t believe what was happening. She told him she’d divorce him, and then wouldn’t let him see her or the child, or speak to either of them, not even by phone, for over a week. He was distracted. I’ll tell you, she really made him crawl. He bought her a mink jacket, promised to take her to Paris, gave her a diamond brooch worth a mint. She eventually agreed to go back to him, but told him that if it happened again, that was it. The funny part was, she’d been having an affair with someone else while he was busy with the secretary, and she only blew the whistle on him out of spite, because her lover had ditched her and gone back to his own wife. I know that she’s had at least one other lover since then, but Riccardo’s such an idiot that he never found out. And after the last time, he got such a fright about the possibility of losing his daughter that now he hardly dares look at another woman, much less get into bed with one.’ There were few things Franca enjoyed more than such a tale as this.

‘Fat chance of something like that happening to me,’ she added, more in regret, seemingly, than in pride. ‘Who’d run off with Davide, with his pot-belly and his bald head and his nonsense? And even if they did, and he wanted to make up for it afterwards, where would all the money for the treats come from, eh? Who breaks their back six days a week selling pasta and cheese, anyway? Who has all the good ideas about how to run the shop better? I’d like to see Davide try to make it up to me for cheating on me by buying me a present with the money I’d earned in the first place!’

Every year Fabiola and Pietro had a Christmas party at their house, and every year I was invited. I didn’t want to go, but I felt that this time I had to: I hadn’t been there the preceding year, and also I felt a sort of obligation, because of my
working
for Pietro. There was pragmatism in it too. I knew that
there would be local business people there, and that perhaps a bit of freelance translating might come from it, and so I went along.

The first problem was trying to find a suitable gift for Fabiola. That was always a difficulty and a source of resentment to me. I couldn’t afford to give her an expensive present, and Fabiola wasn’t interested in anything but the best. The idea that it was the thought that counted would have struck her as a very odd notion. The first year I was in S. Giorgio, when I didn’t know her very well and I had very little money, I gave her a standard-sized
pannettone
for Christmas. In the shop where I bought it, they stuck a big red bow on the box for me, and I thought it looked like a reasonable thing to give someone – well, I’d have been quite contented if someone had given it to me. When I went to Fabiola’s house, I gave her the cake as soon as I went through the door. She didn’t actually utter the words ‘Thank you,’ but whipped the box out of sight, gave a little smile, and led me into the drawing room. She made no reference to it, but there was no failing to notice the massive
pannettone,
at least four times the size of the one I had brought, sitting on a small table. It looked like a house altar dedicated to some male fertility god.

There was such a difference between Fabiola and Franca in this regard. Franca still got a childish thrill even out of the smallest and most simple gift. Her imagination was still alive, while Fabiola’s had been dulled by wealth. I remember when we were growing up in Ireland, how much I used to look forward to all the special food – not just the turkey and the pudding, but the boxes of chocolates and even the fruit my father would buy for us on Christmas Eve: the grapes, and the big soft wet pears. I never wanted to lose my sense of occasion. I had a bottle of Calvados I was hoarding until Ted arrived for Christmas. I used to take it out of the cupboard and look at it, and then put it away again. It was salutary to look at people like Fabiola, Pietro and their friends, because it was as if they had rubbed the magic lantern, and been given all the riches they wished for, but they were afraid to admit, sitting in the middle of this plenty, that it had failed to make them happy.

I did feel very sorry for Fabiola the night of the party. As soon as she opened the door to me, I could see how nervous she was. She was more heavily made up than usual, and was wearing a short skirt of black quilted satin, together with a sort of spangly blouse. I remembered the bit of gossip Franca had told me, and I realized why Fabiola looked so fraught. She must have been aware that the situation between herself and Pietro was by now a topic of speculation and gossip all over town. Fabiola’s
happiness
came not from her wealth and beauty, but from the admiration and envy her wealth and beauty evoked in other people. In the same way, she wasn’t unhappy now because Pietro had gone off with another woman, but because she knew that people were talking and laughing about it. There was no one she could trust, not even these ‘friends’ whom she had invited to her home, and who now arrived with gifts of champagne, and were so sweetly greeted, so fondly kissed, and so deeply feared.

Pietro took my coat in the hall. He also looked tense and miserable, as he had done all week at work. Fabiola kept calling him ‘Darling’ – ‘Give Aisling a drink, Darling,’ ‘Darling, will you introduce Aisling to everybody.’ At the start of the evening it sounded merely phoney to me, but by the end of the night her tone had changed, to one of deep sarcasm.

It wasn’t a very big party – five couples and me. The only guest I recognized was Pietro’s brother Riccardo, who introduced me to his wife, Marisa. She looked me over from head to toe with one brief, cold glance, and she obviously didn’t think much of what she saw. They were sitting beside a couple who told me they lived in Bologna. Pietro said that I was from Ireland, and the usual question followed: Is there still fighting in Ireland? I said that there was, but not as much as in Sicily and Calabria. I also explained that the violence was only in a small part of Ireland, and not in the area where I came from.

‘And can you tell me please,’ said the man from Bologna, ‘who is fighting in Ireland? Is it English fighting Irish or Catholics fighting Protestants?’

People always ask me this and I hate it when they do, because there’s no simple answer, and they’re not interested in a
complicated one, in fact they’re usually not interested in the answer at all. I could see how pleased the man was that he had been able to ask such an informed and incisive question. He didn’t really care who was killing whom or why. People ask you about Ireland who you know would be hard pressed to pick it out on a map, who could easily confuse it with Spitzbergen. Not long after I came to Italy Franca remarked to me one day, ‘I suppose you’re a very good skier.’ I couldn’t for the life of me understand what put that idea in her head. I must admit that there have been times when I’ve been asked about the situation in Ireland and just to avoid the long tedious explanations that might follow I’ve spiked their conversational guns by opening my eyes wide and saying, ‘Fighting? In Ireland? Why not at all, there’s no trouble in Ireland.’ I knew anyway that for the rest of the night they would forget about Ireland and my being from it, and would ask me, ‘And do you have this sort of food in England?’ ‘And do you have this particular custom in England at Christmas?’

Over dinner, everybody was keen to try out their old broken fragments of school English, asking me if what they said was correct, asking me for the English words for all the things on the table: the cloth, the knives, the plates. Fabiola, who prided herself on her inability to cook, had brought in the caterers. Usually meals in the house were made by a housekeeper, who came every day to cook and bake and clean, while Fabiola was still asleep in bed, or out shopping, or down in the factory, sitting in Pietro’s office complaining to him. Before I left the house, Franca had said, ‘You’ll either get oysters or
bruschetta,’
that is, either a very sophisticated menu, or simple peasant fare. Fabiola had opted for the latter, which had become very fashionable. The grander the dinner, the more likely you were to find
polenta
and sausage on your fine bone-china plate. All Fabiola’s guests rose to the occasion, and cooed with delight, as though they were sated with caviare, and it was a rare treat for them to eat such ordinary food.

Fabiola didn’t eat anything at all. She served herself tiny portions and then pushed them around her plate with a fork. She
had once told me about being at a dinner, and at the end of the night, one of the men in the group had said to her, ‘How do you do it, Fabiola? At the end of an evening when everyone else looks tired, you look just as stunningly beautiful as you did when you arrived.’ ‘And I’ll tell you what the secret is, Aisling,’ she had said to me proudly. ‘When I go out to dinner, I never, ever eat. It ruins your make-up, especially your lipstick. I pretend to, of course, but I never eat a single thing.’

‘Maybe I shouldn’t ask this while we’re eating,’ Riccardo said, ‘but did anyone see the programme on television the other night about people who eat insects?’

‘Oh yes,’ said the woman from Bologna delightedly. ‘Wasn’t it horrible!’

‘It was all about these people, I don’t remember where, Africa or Australia or somewhere, and they eat insects. All sorts, even grubs and things like that, I could hardly believe it.’ Marisa stared at her husband with contempt. She was the only one who took no part in the ensuing animated conversation. Maybe it’s because I’m not married and have no desire ever to be so that I have a morbid fascination with married couples. I look at them and I wonder what brought them together, what keeps them together. I suppose it’s a bit like the way people who’ve never had any contact with Catholicism look at nuns and wonder how they live the life they do. One thing I always notice with married people is how much they need other married couples to bolster them up, to reinforce their way of life. They seem to depend on that, and to see people who aren’t married as a sort of a threat, so they pretend to pity them. The man from Bologna was talking about his wife as if she weren’t there. The topic of conversation had moved on to children.