The Girl from the Paradise Ballroom (4 page)

There had been Trombettas in London for more than sixty years, migrating from their village just outside Rome. Antonio's grandfather Nino had arrived first, in 1870. He had been recruited in Lazio by his mother's cousin, who ran a flock of organ-grinders from his house in Clerkenwell. The organ-grinders were all boys, thirty of them, under contract for three years. Each morning they would go out into the streets with their barrel organs and their mischievous white-faced monkeys; each night they would return to the ramshackle house in Saffron Hill, hand over the cash they had gathered, and sit down to eat boiled rice and cabbage and bacon.

Nino was fortunate. Unlike some
padroni,
his mother's cousin was an honest man, who fed his boys properly and paid up at the end of their contracts. When he got his lump sum of eight pounds sterling Nino went home to Italy. He gave half the money to his father, to buy a small plot of land on the outskirts of the village; then he married his
fidanzata
in the plain stone church where his parents had been married. There was not enough work in Lazio to feed him, though, never mind keep a family, and six weeks after the wedding he returned to England.

By now organ-grinders had fallen from favor. Too many people complained that they were a nuisance, plaguing respectable passersby with their squalling. Nino, wise to the times, purchased a handcart and a brazier and sold roast chestnuts, imported each autumn from his homeland. The handcart was shaped like a Venetian gondola, prettily studded with mirrors. In the summer his young wife made ice cream, boiling up the milk and sugar in their little kitchen in Soho. The ice cream was pale and crystalline, scented with vanilla. It was served in small glasses, a penny a lick, sluiced out between customers in a tin bucket beneath the counter.

This was the business that Enrico, Antonio's father, inherited. When he was thirteen he came to London and learned to peddle his barrow along Piccadilly, trilling his hand organ as he went. Like his father, though, Enrico had a nose for change. More and more of his compatriots were abandoning their street traders' lives to set up proper establishments—cafés, boardinghouses, barbershops. Enrico wanted to be one of them. After Nino died from tuberculosis Enrico sold the barrow and persuaded his father-in-law to go shares on the lease of a sweet kiosk. It was in a convenient spot; working men and girls walked past each day, as well as plush West End couples in their top hats and fragile silk dresses. The right man could make good money from it.

Enrico worked hard, hefting boxes of wine gums and peppermints, smiling benignly when pimpled office boys accused him of shortchanging them. Half of what he earned he sent home to Lazio. It meant that his mother could purchase her own small house on the village's steep main street; it meant that his brothers did not have to live in poverty. Soon he felt confident enough to bring his wife, Mariana, to London. Antonio came too, a dark-eyed, curly-haired boy of three. Before long more children were born: two daughters, Paolina and Filomena, then Valentino, his youngest, the apple of his eye. The family took rooms in Frith Street, and Enrico smiled indulgently as his wife bought furniture, bric-a-brac, smart Sunday clothes for the children. There were trips to Italy every other year; more land was bought; marriages were arranged for Antonio and for Paolina, who joined her new husband in Lazio—one less mouth to feed. It was a good life, a settled life, and Enrico knew it. All the same, in the summer when day broke early, he would dream that he was back in Italy, in the village that he thought of unshakably as home. He would hear the jangling of the church bells, the shrilling of the cicadas, he would feel the heat reverberating from the earth, and his heart would sink like a stone to remember where he was: in a gray foreign country, a stranger.

“Will you never
learn, Valentino? You will bring shame upon our family.”

It was a cold, dark evening in November. Enrico was planted grimly in the Trombettas' kitchen, staring at his younger son.

“I am sorry, Papa,” said Valentino. “It was only meant in fun—”

“What has happened?” asked Antonio. He was preparing for his night's engagement: not in a dance hall this time, but a local Italian restaurant, La Rondine, decorated with Chianti bottles and tinted photographs of Naples.

Enrico jabbed his hand toward Valentino. “Tell your brother the mischief you've caused.”

Valentino bit his lower lip. He did not accept censure without a fight, which made it surprisingly easy for him to wriggle out of it.

“It was a flirtation, that is all. It is not my fault that Lucia's family have taken it to heart.”

“What? Lucia from Ricci's café?” Antonio looked up from his accordion. He was wiping the keys with a chamois cloth, so the constant touch of his fingertips did not yellow the ivory.

Enrico's creased eyes were like chestnuts, hard with reproach. “Her father has packed her off to Italy, to be married to her cousin Federico. He is afraid that if she stays the story will get out, Federico will learn that she is damaged goods, and he will not have her.”

“She is not damaged goods,” said Valentino. “I told you: it was a bit of fun. Besides, the Riccis should have taken better care of her. Any man could flirt with her, working in that café.”

“And that is another thing. Carlo Ricci will have to send for his niece, to take Lucia's place. There will be all the trouble of asking for a work permit. Long difficult forms to be written out in English, and no guarantee that the authorities will say yes. Carlo hates such things. It will make him sick with worry.”

Valentino pushed back his chair scornfully. “These British. It is an outrage. They treat us like second-class citizens, when in truth we are Romans, with a heritage far more noble than theirs—”

“Don't change the subject. The customs of the British are neither here nor there. You must mend your ways, Valentino, do you hear? You are nearly twenty. You cannot play the fool forever.”

Valentino's lips flickered like quicksilver, as if to say, Why not? He guessed that he had gone too far, though, and he bowed his head. “Yes, Papa. I am sorry.”

Enrico contemplated his son. Nobody could stay angry with Valentino for long. He did not have Antonio's obvious good looks—he was lankier, with a thin, expressive mouth and a beaky nose—but there was a vitality about him that was irresistible. When you saw Valentino smile you felt glad to be alive.

“Well,” said Enrico, “perhaps it was not entirely your fault. I did not say so to Carlo, but I have always thought Lucia a flighty girl. You must be careful all the same though, eh, my son?” He turned toward Antonio. “It is your responsibility too, Antonio. You should keep an eye on your brother, help him to stay out of trouble.”

“Yes, Papa,” said Antonio. He had been taking an oblique sort of blame for Valentino's antics ever since they were children. Like Filomena, Valentino had been born in London. He had been apprenticed as a waiter at Bertorelli's grand restaurant in Charlotte Street, but he was always getting up to mischief there: breaking plates, mimicking the chefs, folding the starched napkins into phalluses and waggling them behind the customers' backs. After six months the headwaiter told Enrico that it was no use, Valentino would never learn his trade. Enrico had been at his wits' end when Bruno, Filomena's
fidanzato,
had proposed Valentino for the barman's job at the
fascio,
the Italian club. Antonio was troubled by the plan, but Enrico overruled him. Fascism is the only thing your brother takes seriously, he had said. Who knows? Perhaps he will do well there.

Antonio watched as his father rinsed his hands at the scullery tap. Enrico himself had not joined the fascist party—he was not a political man, he said—but over the years he had grown to admire Mussolini. The
duce
's practical achievements in Lazio impressed him: the draining of the Pontine marshes, so that they were no longer a breeding ground for malaria; the building of an orderly new city, Littoria, on the land that had been reclaimed. Lately he had begun to read the copies of
L'Italia Nostra
that Valentino brought home, and he would nod approvingly when his compatriots talked of how the
duce
had made them proud to be Italian once more.

“I am going to Ricci's,” Enrico said now. “I will explain to Carlo that you have apologized, Valentino. He is a man of the world, he will be satisfied.”

Antonio slid his accordion into its leather case. “If Carlo wishes, I will help him with his niece's work permit. I am used to these complicated British forms. They do not frighten me.”

Enrico nodded and fastened the stud in his collar. Beneath his shirt he wore a gold chain with a crucifix and a coral horn, to guard against the evil eye. “Well, I will be off,” he said. “Tell Filomena I will be back for supper.”

When he had
gone Antonio looked across at his brother. Valentino grinned, all pretense vanishing from his face.

“Don't give me the evil eye, Antonino. You've seen Lucia. Ripe as a plum. If it hadn't been me, it would have been another man. So why not me? I know what I am doing, after all.”

“It was not just a flirtation then?”

Valentino shrugged. “She wanted me to speak to our father, ask him to arrange a match. Her cousin Federico is like a bear, she says, all rough and clumsy.”

Lucia's face sprang into Antonio's mind. She was a docile young woman, not very clever. He felt sorry for her.

“There was no point my talking to Papa, though,” Valentino said. “Lucia has been promised to Federico since she was twelve. Her father would never have agreed to a match with me, I'm not even from his village. And besides, I don't want a flirt for a wife. I want a sweet honest girl like your Danila. An Italian girl, brought up in Italy.”

The door opened and Filomena came into the kitchen. Her thick dark hair was tied in a checkered scarf.

“Men's talk, Filomena,” said Valentino. “Not for your ears.”

Filomena pulled a face. Of all the family she was the most resistant to Valentino's charms. “Talk as much as you like,” she said, taking her apron from its hook, “but if you don't want me to hear, you'd better go somewhere else. I've got to make the supper.”

“Never mind Lucia Ricci,” said Valentino, clicking his tongue, “it's Filomena who should be sent home to Italy, to learn some manners.”

“Lucia Ricci's been sent home? Why?”

“None of your business.” Valentino turned to Antonio. “I hope Bruno doesn't find out what a shrew our sister is until after they're married. We'll have her on our hands for the rest of her life.”

“Tcha,” said Filomena, clattering in the cupboards. She was a good cook but a noisy one, slamming the pots against the stove as though she wanted to punish them.

“Isn't Danila helping you with the supper?” asked Antonio.

Filomena whacked the kitchen knife through an onion. “She's resting. She says her feet have swollen up. To the size of watermelons, she says.”

“What do you expect? She's pregnant. She needs to take care of her health.” Valentino rose to his feet. He treated his brother's wife with reverence, as though she were set apart from other women. “You should have respect for that, Filomena. What higher destiny can a woman have, than to produce sons for the Italian empire? As the
duce
says, maternity is to the woman what war is to the man. Well, I'm off to work. Are you coming for a drink later, Antonio?”

“Not tonight. I'm singing at La Rondine tonight.”

“You should come to the
fascio
more often. Mix with your compatriots, hear the news from Italy. It would do you good.” On the threshold Valentino turned to Antonio with a smile. “I tell you, there's one thing I've learned from this business with Lucia Ricci. Don't meddle with young girls. From now on it's married women only.”