The Last Pier (5 page)

BUT IN SPITE
of the endless talk of war, the sky over Bly on this August Wednesday remained blue enough to patch a sailor’s trousers.

The town had a beach that could be reached by a set of stone steps from its promenade. It had a main road, some shops, a school, a church, a railway station and most importantly of all, on Union Street, Molinello’s Hokey-Pokey Ice-Cream Parlour.

On this fine morning, as the sea breeze ruffled the soft sand dunes, the summer fair remained asleep on the green close by, its coloured lights still switched off, its helter-skelter mats out of sight. Two jolly fishermen returning with the catch lifted their lobster pots from their boat and struggled up towards the fishmonger’s shop where a querulous seagull wrestled with a fish head discarded in the gutter.

While back on Union Street Molinello’s was just opening its ice-cream coloured doors. For this was the Golden Era for all things Italian. And very foreign it looked too, with a blue and white striped awning flapping jauntily as Lucio Molinello began setting out the tables on the pavements. He was a tall, painfully thin man in his late thirties with black hair greying at the temples. The horn-rimmed spectacles he wore added to his serious, slightly melancholy air.

Polishing a new carmine-red roll-top Morris eight, was his older, portly brother Mario, the actual owner of the ice-cream parlour. Mario was in a happy mood today, a ready smile creasing his face, making it look like a walnut. Together the brothers were the butt of jokes amongst the locals, privately being referred to as Laurel and Hardy.

The reason for Mario’s exceptionally good mood was the Morris eight, sparkling in the sun, a present to himself from
himself. To celebrate the opening of yet another ice-cream stall on the promenade.

‘Come on for God’s sake!’ Lucio grumbled. ‘Playtime is over, you puppy. Your customers are waiting.’

‘Let them wait,’ grinned Mario. ‘Where else can they get what I give them?’

Sunlight washed the ground with a broad brush. Two customers, both of them regulars, stood at the stainless steel counter waiting for their
brosca,
a soft brioche filled with ice cream.

It was a quarter to eight in the morning, too early for the English who frequented the shop, too early for the children from the neighbouring villages. Only the Neapolitan members of the community, the secretaries from the Italian Social Club, came on the early train from Ipswich at this hour. Tradition was tradition. Not even the threat of war could break the desire for
brosca.

The Hokey-Pokey was the oldest ice-cream parlour in Britain. It stood in a prime spot in the town centre, close to the memorial of the Great War and was a magnet for the many Italians living in the region. Customers came from as far away as Felixstowe docks, Lowestoft and even, in the summer months, Great Yarmouth. From June to September Mario Molinello’s ice cream sold almost as fast as it was made.

At the entrance was a notice.

Gelato Artigianale di Produzione Propria (Ice cream handmade by the proprietor)

Mario finished polishing his car and spat on it. Then he gave it one last furious rub and went inside, calling to his children. There were five of them.

‘Giorgio, Luigi, Beppe, Franca, Carlo,
venite qui!’
he bellowed.

Two Italian farmworkers entering the shop laughed. Most people in the town of Bly could not tell any of the Molinello children apart.

There was a movement of the beaded curtain and Mario’s wife Anna emerged.

‘We are not in Italy now, Mario,’ she said. ‘There is no need to shout. You will not get instant
servizio
here!’

Mario grinned.

‘Mama!’ said Franca.

Franca was a younger, thinner, nineteen-year-old version of her dark-haired, buxom mother. Franca, precious only daughter in a family of boys, good-natured like her mother, soft-hearted like her father but still inclined to fight with her youngest brother.

‘Can you tell that
cretino
Carlo to leave my box of chocolates alone? They were my present, not his.’

‘You see,’ Anna told her husband. ‘You are the one who has taught them to shout. Your daughter does not behave like a lady!’

‘Franca!’ cried Mario, feigning anger. ‘Please,
cara
, mind your voice
and
your language! What will the British think of us?’

He finished serving his customer who grinned and left. Everyone knew Mario could deny his daughter nothing.

‘
Cara,’
Anna said, ‘let’s not make a fuss. Your father does not like his British customers to see real life going on in this place.’

‘He gave them to me!’ cried Franca.

‘Who?’ asked Beppe, the middle child, coming in to enjoy the quarrel.

‘Her boyfriend, Joe Maudsley, you idiot,’ said Giorgio the eldest. At twenty-two he was a larger version of his brother Luigi.

‘What’s the crisis, Papi? Is it war, already!’

‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ shouted Franca.

‘It wasn’t Joe,’ said Lucio coming in, unamused.

‘What’s going on?’ Anna asked. ‘Who is giving my daughter presents?’

‘Robert Wilson,’ said Lucio.

Everyone turned to look at Franca.

‘He’s the man from the Ministry,’ Lucio told them. ‘He’s renting Eel cottage at Palmyra Farm.’

‘Oh him!’ Mario threw his hands up in the air, losing interest. ‘He wanted to speak to me, too. The Government has decided to look for any unused land around here. But as we don’t have any…’ he shrugged.

‘That’s what you think,’ Lucio said.

There was a small silence.

‘I know about this,’ Anna said. ‘Agnes told me. She said this man wanted them to plough up the tennis court.’

‘To get rid of it?’

Beppe was shocked.

‘No!’

‘Where will we play tennis, then?’

‘There may be a war coming,’ Lucio told them. ‘If that happens there won’t be time for tennis.’

Again the uneasy silence. Mario glanced at his younger brother.

‘Rubbish,’ he said. ‘It won’t come to that.’

But he sounded uncertain.

‘It probably will,’ Lucio said flatly.

He was cleaning out the freezer and didn’t look at anyone.

‘What has this got to do with a present being given to my daughter,’ Anna asked, ‘from a man we don’t know?’

She spoke half-jokingly for her daughter’s face had gone suddenly white.

‘He was looking for Papi and Uncle Lucio. And he gave me the present. He’s given one to Rose, too. I’m sorry, Mama.’

‘In that case,’ Anna said, smoothly, ‘it’s fine. But you must share it with the others. Now, get Carlo because I too have some news.’

‘What?’ asked Carlo coming in, hoping the trouble had blown over.

Carlo was not yet seventeen, the youngest of the Molinello children. He had the same thick curly hair, the same dark eyes and the same easy-going manner that characterised the whole family. When he saw his mother he smiled sweetly and Mario
groaned. Carlo was Anna’s favourite and, in Mario’s opinion, over-indulged. But then, Carlo was everyone’s favourite, capable of getting away with most things.

‘Mama –’ began Franca.

Anna held up her hand.

‘Now listen to me, all of you. The Maudsleys are going to have a big tennis party at the end of this harvest. The charity dance will take place as usual afterwards and we, of course will all be there for that. But the tennis party is just for a few close friends because of the selling of the land. So,’ she paused, ‘because Agnes does everything on her own, as usual, I thought it would be a good idea if you boys could help with getting the court ready for the match? Franca too?’

Beppe guffawed.

‘Of course, Franca too! If Joe is there, certainly.’

‘Shut
up
.’

Everyone laughed good-naturedly. Carlo winked at his sister but she only scowled back.

Straightening up, holding a stainless steel basin of ice cream, Lucio glanced briefly at his sister-in-law.

‘I can help too,’ he said, his face no longer severe.

The Molinellos had moved to England in 1920. Their story was that of so many Italian families. Mario and Lucio were the sons of a poor farmer living in a village called Bratto deep in a lovely chestnut valley of northern Tuscany. Beautiful waterfalls, poor soil, harsh winters, landslides and storms. Not a bit like Suffolk. Not flat and delicate and full of fragile seabirds beside the North Sea.

Long ago their mother, sensing her elder son’s restlessness, knew he would leave. The little hamlet surrounded by its peaceful green hills would never be enough for Mario. Life for him existed elsewhere. The town of Pontremoli, which to everyone else was a metropolis, with its grand old cinema and its town square, was too small, too provincial for Mario. Not knowing
what to do, his mother went to ask the priest for advice. After that she killed their only calf. Then she visited her neighbour to enquire about their daughter, Anna Varoli. Anna was exactly the sort of girl her son needed.

It had been a September wedding with grapes ripening on the vine and an accordion duo playing
Santa Lucia.
Even though he disapproved of his elder brother’s frivolous ways, the more serious-minded and recently married Lucio was persuaded to be best man.

Outside the church, through the old stone archway overflowing with tubs of geraniums, the land appeared green and beautiful. The mountains of Lunigiana touched by a slant of Mediterranean light were at their best and for a brief moment winter was impossible to imagine.

That evening the groom and his bride had danced under a moon that shone full and low in the sky. Shooting stars rained down their blessings while all across the valley came the sweet haunting echoes of owls, calling to one another.

It was a night of wonder and promise. The sort to be taken out and remembered during the years of migration ahead. For, as he danced cheek-to-cheek with his new wife, Mario Molinello was already making plans. Overnight he had become a man of means. His wife’s family owned a mill for making chestnut flour. Anna was their only child, her dowry had been large, and while nothing would alter the beauty of the mountains, Mario knew, if they were ever to make a success of their lives, they would have to leave.

‘England is the place for us,’ he said.

‘And children?’

‘We can have dozens!’ Mario boasted joyously. ‘Let’s start tonight!’

With growing shrewdness, Anna saw her new husband was a dreamer. It would be her job to make those dreams come true.

In England, she began first to produce children at a daring rate and then to raise them with a fierce love that astonished the people who became her friends. One day, Anna informed her husband, their large boisterous family would grow up and become capable of many things. Capable of helping in the family business, capable of conversing in two languages, capable of straddling two worlds as they themselves never could. Mario was a little taken aback by Anna’s determination but in less than three years she had found a place to settle.

‘Italy has arrived in Suffolk,’ she announced, smiling and nodding at the neighbours while conversing with her husband in Italian. ‘This is where we will open our ice-cream parlour!’

Mario hesitated. Somehow, without his realising it, his wife had become the custodian of their joint plans. He had wanted a vegetable shop, selling fresh produce.

‘Ice cream?’ he asked. ‘The ice cream here is disgusting, full of disease.’

‘Not
English
ice cream,’ his wife shrieked. ‘Are you insane?’

Then reining in her voice because they were walking outside with the
bambini,
she whispered, ‘
gelato Italiano, caro
!’

‘Really?’

‘
Certo
!
The English will love it. And there will be no diseases.’

Mario knew when he was beaten.

In the beginning the people in the town of Bly were wary of these strangers who breathed garlic as dragons breathed fire. But Anna, amused by her husband’s cautiousness, was undeterred.

She set to work and found some premises. Then, two weeks before their third son Beppe was born, she bought a stainless steel counter (the first ever seen in England) and a huge refrigerator from London.

And with that, Molinello’s Hokey-Pokey Ice-Cream Parlour was launched on Bly.

Mario was delighted. Observing his wife juggle the baby and their two older children he realised he had totally misjudged
the little peasant girl whom he had first met, wearing clogs, and making
testaroli
over a charcoal fire.

The neighbourhood watched with interest, too. Suffolk, grey-green and beautiful, that most secretive of counties, stamped with ancient loyalty to the Crown, was notoriously difficult for newcomers to penetrate. But the sign-writer, taking a liking to this eccentric family, offered to write ‘Molinello and Son’ over the door.

‘We haven’t finished working on the family,’ Anna told him firmly.

‘My wife wants a dozen kids,’ joked Mario.

The sign-writer offered to add the ‘s’ but Anna was superstitious.

‘Thank you, but we’re calling it the Hokey-Pokey Parlour for now,’ was all she said.

Then, a few days after the shop was fitted out, on Assumption night, Anna had a dream. In her dream the Virgin handed her a lily.

‘You will have four sons,’ the Virgin said. ‘And a daughter.’

The children would be healthy and full of energy. The Molinello business would thrive and the family would become well-respected members of the Italian community. The Virgin spoke softly, smiling at the sleeping woman.

‘You will grow to love this country,’ she predicted. ‘It will be as your own.’

‘And my husband?’ Anna mumbled.

‘Yes, he too. Everyone who meets him will love him.’

Anna nodded, eyes closed.

‘You will be prosperous,’ the Virgin said. ‘All your children will be Suffolk born and bred.’

There was a pause.

‘You will want for nothing.’

‘But…?’

The apparition shook her head placing a finger on Anna’s lips.

‘Be happy in your time of plenty. Many do not have as much.’