Sweet Bitter Cane

by G S Johnston

  The fields took on another hue, another texture, knitted rows of plain stitch. Italo returned to the house exhausted and would fall asleep immediately, almost before his head touched the pillow, leaving her alone.

  Each day the men returned for lunch. Most of them had worked for the harvest and Gaetano D’Angelo, the cheeky one, asked her for the minestrone again, though it contained no beans. She’d not planned on cooking it but promised she would. Despite all the commotion, she was lifeless, no energy, no strength. Not seeing Fergus, thinking of him constantly, missing his touch – this agitation had brought with it a malignancy. And Italo seemed to mirror her, dark semicircles under his eyes, more fatigued by the planting than by the harvest.

  On the last morning, after a full week of planting, she rose early with Italo and made coffee. But she couldn’t bring herself to drink it and left it sitting on the workbench. Soon it was cold and cloudy and bitter. She stoked the fire to cook the minestrone, but when she seared the onion and garlic the smell caught her, a surge of nausea. She ran outside for air. She stood but the nausea wouldn’t remit. It came in waves, which became spasms. Maria saw her from the breezeway and came and laid her hand on Amelia’s back.

  ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me,’ Amelia said. ‘I’ve no energy.’

  ‘Are you tender?’ Maria touched her own breasts. ‘Like you’re to bleed?’

  Amelia straightened and looked at her. Maria smiled, and she had no idea why.

  ‘Don’t you know?’ Maria said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re pregnant.’

  A wave of nausea hit her. She swallowed hard, but it was too strong and she vomited onto the earth. In all her tiredness and occupation, she’d not thought of this simple thing. Maria was smiling. More heaviness and fatigue washed through her. How could this be?

  ‘You’re in shock,’ Maria said. She handed her a tea towel to wipe her mouth. ‘Come inside.’

  Once they were in the kitchen, Maria handed her some water. She rinsed her mouth but the taste persisted.

  ‘It must be since you last bled,’ Maria said. ‘Just before Italo left.’

  Amelia glared at her. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘A woman notices,’ Maria said. ‘And with my four it was always just after I’d bled. That’s the best time.’

  Amelia had no mind to calculate the days. But if Maria thought it was Italo’s child, she wouldn’t disabuse her. Except she knew the child simply couldn’t be Italo’s. There had been no union. Just with Fergus.

  ‘What a homecoming—’

  Amelia grabbed Maria’s forearm. ‘Don’t tell anyone. Not yet.’

  Maria’s face coiled in query. Amelia released her arm. But then Maria smiled, raised her eyebrows and nodded. She brought Amelia another glass of water, and once she’d breathed deeply, the nausea subsided. But her mind surged: What was she to do? How could she have been such a fool? What was she to say to Italo? He would know it wasn’t his child. Should she tell Fergus? Should she tell Italo of Fergus? She doubted he’d understand. She didn’t understand. Why should he?

  This curse had come to her. How struck she’d been not to think it would.

  But she knew what to do.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The weatherboard house in New Farm, Brisbane, stood on its own, back some four metres from the road, raised from the ground like every other building in the street. It was a Saturday, midday. There was a small front lawn, bisected to equal portions by a straight cemented path, six wooden steps leading to a verandah. Someone had recently planted a small citrus tree to one side of the path. Amelia pushed on the picket gate, but it was latched, the wood rough and dry, the flaking paint mostly peeled away. She released the catch and walked the few paces to the tree. The gate slammed behind her. She touched a leaf. It was lemon.

  ‘Zia Amelia. Zia Amelia is here.’

  The flyscreen door flew open, banged against the house wall and quivered. Cristiano hurtled down the steps, a smiled pressed over his face but a look near tears in his eyes. He grabbed her as if she were a phantom that may disappear. Amelia put down her portmanteau, wrapped her hands around Cristiano’s head and pressed him to her belly. It had been almost six months since she’d seen him, and he was considerably taller.

  A silhouette stood in the door, looking at her, illuminated by the light coming from the end of the dark hall.

  ‘Good Lord,’ Clara said, as nonchalantly as if they’d seen one another the day before. She opened the flyscreen but remained on the verandah. She wore her hair pulled from her face, a long white apron over her dark-blue cotton dress. Suddenly, Amelia felt calm. No harm could come to anything. Just seeing Clara took her back to the deck of the boat and the last sight of smoking Vesuvius.

  Clara pressed her hand to her mouth. Her eyes were pained, filled with tears. Amelia lifted her hands from Cristiano’s head and opened her arms. Clara began to walk, slow steps that gathered pace and tapped on the wooden stairs. She embraced Amelia, and Cristiano reinforced his grip around her legs.

  ‘I’m so happy to see you,’ Clara said, her voice trembling.

  Clara pulled back to look at her. Amelia smiled with her lips and nodded. She would not cry. She’d promised herself.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’ She looked around. ‘And where’s Italo?’

  Amelia looked into Clara’s eyes, taut with concern. Clara embraced her again. There was so much to be said but, in that moment, nothing more needed be uttered. Then, holding hands, they walked back to the house, climbed the stairs. With both hands, Cristiano picked up her portmanteau and lugged it down the dark hall. At the back of the house in the kitchen, without words, Clara set to making them tea. She had a stove. Amelia stood in the doorway. Where was she to begin this story?

  ‘The house is lovely,’ Amelia said.

  ‘It’s run-down, but anything is better than the hostel.’

  ‘Where’s Paolo?’

  ‘He’s at work. Overtime.’

  Clara ran her eyes around the room. Amelia nodded. The overtime was to pay the rent.

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ Amelia said.

  Clara looked at her, surprised, and then smiled, put down the teapot and came to embrace her.

  ‘I’m so happy.’ She pulled back and looked at Amelia. ‘But you’re not so happy.’

  Once one tear fell, ran and slipped from her cheek, she couldn’t stem the flow. She started to sob. Clara led her to a small couch. She curled into a ball, her head in Clara’s lap, her soft hand passing and repassing over her head. The sobs wouldn’t stop. All these things had been welling and welling.

  Cristiano came to her. ‘Zia, why are you crying?’

  He sat next to her, in the crook of her belly. Clara left them, went to collect the tea. Amelia slowly gained control, her sobs satiating the sorrow and fear and anxiety. Clara sent Cristiano from the room and then sat next to her, passed her hand over her head in soft, comforting caresses.

  ‘I don’t know where to begin,’ Amelia said.

  ‘You’ve written many long letters and there’s been no hint of this, so I suspect you should start at the beginning. And I suspect that’s when you left Brisbane.’

  Amelia began to tell – out it poured – how she’d seen Fergus working half naked, how he’d cried at the wedding celebration. How his kiss made her feel like nothing she’d ever felt, that just the press and warmth and scent of his lips had made her aware of another soul. How her heart beat without restraint. How she’d made a mistake with Fergus and then tried to resist, but how Italo had gone to Melbourne and how she was disappointed with him but mostly, and most of all, she was besotted with Fergus.

  ‘I can’t resist him.’ She was crying, the distress rising and falling in waves. ‘I have no control. I think of him constantly. Even now I want nothing more than for him to walk into this room. And he knows that. And now this.’

  For moments, Clara said nothing. ‘Does Italo suspect?’

  She sh
ook her head. ‘He knows something’s upset me. But after he’d been away, he’d not challenge me on the expense for me coming to you.’

  ‘But does he know you’re pregnant?’

  ‘Only a woman who lives nearby.’

  ‘Does Fergus know?’ Clara asked.

  ‘I’ve not seen him since I discovered.’

  Clara sighed heavily, lost in her thoughts. Amelia felt calmer just to have voiced this. In many ways, now it was real. Cristiano came into the room. He was hungry so, with conversations only of the mundane, they fed him afternoon tea and walked to a small park. Cristiano refused her offer of help on the swing.

  When they returned to the house, Paolo was asleep on the couch. The room was so overheated they threw open the windows. He looked tired and very surprised to see Amelia. Over dinner, they talked of their lives, Paolo full of questions of cane farming.

  ‘You should come,’ Amelia said. ‘Next harvest.’ Was she so sure there would be another harvest? ‘We can always use another set of hands. There’s good money.’

  Paolo looked at Clara, who just raised her eyebrows. ‘It’s not so easy,’ he said.

  ‘Cristiano’s had a hard time,’ Clara said. ‘He refuses to speak English. This year, he’ll start school.’

  ‘I have my job,’ Paolo said. ‘Clara has hers. We must pay the rent. It’s not so easy to get away.’

  Late that evening, after they’d cleared the meal, the two were alone. It was only then Amelia saw how tired Clara looked.

  ‘If I could split myself in two,’ Clara said, ‘maybe then I could get it all done and sleep.’

  Clara worked at the sewing factory in the morning.

  ‘We hardly see one another,’ Clara said.

  ‘Come to the farm. The canecutters make a lot of money.’

  ‘I don’t think Paolo is right for it.’ Clara looked at the sock she was darning. ‘Who do you love?’

  The simplicity of the question caught her unprepared.

  ‘I met them two days apart,’ Amelia said. ‘I don’t know either of them. I just happen to be married to one.’

  She thought of those days, travelling with Fergus, meeting Italo in the field. How disappointed she’d been. How lonely. How long ago.

  ‘Does Italo treat you well?’

  ‘I can’t complain. He’s often considerate. I like the farm. But he is as his mother suggested – selfish.’

  ‘Then he’s just a man.’ Clara went back to her needle, lost in her own thoughts. ‘And Fergus?’

  ‘His smile is a spell … But as to his character … He’s gentle. But people say he was badly affected by the war. And I’ve seen his despair. The war is one thing we share, but I don’t know much else of him.’

  ‘Except his sweetness in bed.’

  Amelia reddened. Even in front of Clara, this was an embarrassing admission.

  ‘We’re imagined to feel nothing,’ Clara said. ‘No red-blooded desire at all. But we do.’

  ‘How can I know who I love?’

  ‘You’re right – how can you know?’ Clara remained deep in thought. ‘And what does it matter?’

  ‘I can’t stay with someone I don’t love.’

  ‘The world is full of people who do.’

  ‘But you and Paolo.’

  ‘I hardly knew him. He just … swept me off my feet. And then I didn’t see him for six years. He’s different to what I remember. But what does it matter what I feel? We have a child. And another coming.’

  ‘You’re pregnant?’

  Clara nodded.

  ‘I’m happy for you.’

  ‘But sad for yourself. Are you absolutely sure the child is Fergus’s?’

  ‘Completely. But you’re happy with Paolo?’

  ‘What choice do I have? The best I can hope for is we’ll return to Italy someday,’ Clara said.

  ‘You don’t like Australia?’

  ‘Is it a question of that? I have no family here. I miss them terribly.’

  Amelia thought of the divide. Here they were on the other side of the world, and she had thought to taste freedom, and look what had become of that? But it wasn’t Australia she wanted to escape.

  ‘If I run away with Fergus—’

  ‘Don’t.’ She put down her work, pressed her eyes to her. ‘What you’re feeling will pass. I don’t think you can trust him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re vulnerable. He’s taken advantage of that.’

  ‘He didn’t force himself on me,’ Amelia said.

  ‘But he knows you’re married.’

  ‘So do I.’

  ‘Do you?’

  Amelia breathed out her frustration. ‘Then what should I do?’

  ‘What do you feel for Italo?’

  ‘Many things. I was angry with him. Disappointed. He always does what he wants. He always has time for men but not for me.’ She considered these negatives, which didn’t embrace the whole situation. ‘We both want to run the farm well, make an easier life. But there’s no passion. He’s … familiar, in a way. I married my brother.’

  ‘Then you have only two choices, and for a woman, that’s something. You can tell Italo the truth. I suspect this would unleash many problems. His honour would be offended. He would have to act. I doubt he’d just accept it.’

  ‘And my other choice?’

  ‘Go back to Italo and make love. Don’t see Fergus. Never discuss it with Italo.’

  ‘Such sharp choices.’

  ‘Being a woman is never blunt.’

  Amelia slept badly on the couch in the lounge. Cristiano had offered her his bed, but though it was long enough for her, she refused it.

  How could two men be so unlike? Italo was simple and direct. Though all his letters were laced with Dante’s metaphors, he was utterly literal. He said what he thought. There was no other meaning. Fergus had some education, but he was wounded, all dark moods and complexity. She laughed out loud. In any other circumstance, the contrast was so great the decision would be easy. But she was to have a child, far from her mother, without any help. And not to her husband.

  She stayed the few days she’d intended. They spoke more and more, weighed all the arguments. But Clara wouldn’t tell her what to do.

  ‘Only you can decide.’

  The last morning, she rose early and packed her few possessions. Cristiano came to the room and saw her portmanteau.

  ‘Why are you leaving?’

  She sat on the couch, and Cristiano hauled himself next to her.

  ‘I must go back to Italo,’ she said, in English. ‘I’ve something to tell him.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  She caught the North Coast Line from Roma Street Station in Brisbane. The station’s name came from the wife of the first Queensland governor, Diamantina di Roma. It would appear, to Amelia at least, there’d been a strong Italian presence in Queensland longer than many cared to admit. The train line wasn’t yet completed to Babinda, only to Ingham. But Clara would telegraph to Maria to tell Italo, who would drive south a hundred miles or so to collect her there. Should he not come, she’d find her own way.

  On the platform, Cristiano cried, and Clara had to pull him away from Amelia’s legs.

  ‘Bello,’ Amelia said, ‘we should be used to goodbyes.’

  But nothing would soothe his red and distressed face.

  ‘We’ll just have to practise them more often,’ Clara said. ‘I’ll come to Babinda as soon as I can.’

  Amelia’s heart leapt again into her throat. She clamped her jaw and nodded.

  ‘Whatever you do, take charge of the situation,’ Clara said. ‘But good luck.’

  Amelia found her carriage. Clara wasn’t one to linger, and she and Cristiano waved from the platform and walked away. Amelia tried not to look but kept glancing to them until they were swallowed by the platform’s hordes of crisscrossing people. She knitted her hands in her lap. She wouldn’t cry. And it wasn’t long before they were moving north and soon clear of the city’s
suburbs.

  In the open, she wondered at the sheer volume of land and sky and beauty passing the window. In another carriage, a baby cried and cried and cried. She felt rocked and soothed by the train’s motion. What a task lay ahead of her, to tell a man – her husband, no less – she carried another’s child. She wasn’t the first woman to be in this position and surely wouldn’t be the last. She remembered Emma’s joy when she told Mancuso. Evidently, his expression barely faltered. He turned his back and she said it again, and he said he had no idea who the hell she was. Poor Emma’s broken heart.

  Amelia had no great sense of how Italo would respond. She hardly knew him. Would he accept it? Or would he say he wanted no part of her and free her, as hard as that would be? And what would Fergus do? As hard as she fought to balance the extremes, each of her arguments had a counterweight, and she was left hanging in the balance. But it was the truth, and it shouldn’t be denied.

  The station in Ingham was small. She made her way along the platform, half thinking Italo mightn’t be there, some delay or other, or he may not have received the telegram. She prayed he’d not send Fergus. But Italo stood in the antechamber, out of place in his Sunday best on a Wednesday, his stance awkward and unfamiliar. She walked to him, her portmanteau at her side. They looked at one another. She’d left him in such a hurry and without any real explanation, in the middle of the planting, but she was in no mood to start apologising. She reached up, her hand on his shoulder for stability, and kissed his cheek.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he said, his brow drawn up to creases.

  ‘Much better,’ she said and smiled. ‘Everyone sends their love.’

  He nodded, and they turned from the station towards his truck. He was quiet, his hands tapping on the wheel, his eyes hardly leaving the road ahead. He knew something was wrong, but she knew him enough to know he’d never ask. She told him small things: of Clara’s sewing, of Cristiano’s height, of the rented house, of Paolo’s construction job. She’d not mention that Clara was pregnant.

  ‘I asked them to come for the next harvest.’

  He nodded his approval. And she thought to tell him the truth, then and there in the truck, but it was wrong to do so here and now, so she pushed it off and turned to the view. They continued north. Young canes, short and green, pushed against the breeze. They talked little, each safe in silence. Babinda was a hundred miles away.