Listen to the words, carina. Etrus-can. Tus-can-ee. See? Papà knew his history. Her papà knew so many things.
The last parp of the tuba came, a spattering of applause, before a hesitant violin took over. Little Giuliano was treating everyone to a solo, and he was only a baby, and his mother was convinced he was a prodigy, so you had to let him. Signor Tutto mopped his brow, took a swig of wine. The tune resembled an eightsome reel. Vita sang it into herself, eliding the notes Giuliano cranked from his instrument. . . it was the ‘Dashing White Sergeant’. She saw Papà emerge from the patched-up fascio, clapping his hands. Glass of wine, quick game of briscola. He used to say: I’m not one of those boneheads, carina. But if you weren’t a Party member, you didn’t work. And those hills had eyes, even beadier now than before. Who knew which neighbour would decree your mumblings anti-fascist, would pour you a glass of castor oil to purge your mouth, or simply note your name and pass it on?
And what if it was your mother?
‘Hee-euch!’
Papà offered Mamma his arm, face lit. He’d taught that tune to Signor Tutto, who in turn taught it to everyone he gave lessons to. Mamma slapped his hand away. ‘Not now. Giuliano,’ she said loudly. ‘Play something more traditional.’
Vita watched Papà touch the bridge of his nose. Held her own face up to the evening warmth. She hated when they fought in public. The light turned golden-pink where the sun caught it, dripping honey across the Valle del Serchio. Vast sky and countless mountains, bottoming to a wide, flat plain so full of trees it was hard to see the river. Nothing but deep blue peaks and Garfagnana green. In this confusion of nature, you’d take your bearings from Monte Forato, that great mountain over there. The sleeping man. The hole in the centre was his eye, caused by, either a sad shepherd lying down to die of love, San Pellegrino fighting with the Devil or natural erosion. Whatever, it was a circle of sky where the sky should not be: a fixed and certain point in a panorama of endless peaks. Twice a year, a double sunset would come to the valley, when the winter sun dropped from the horizon and all went dark. Then the sun reappeared in Forato’s eye, and, for a moment, it was day again. Or magic.
Vita used to think it was magic. Halfway down the hillside, she could just make out the rooftops of Catagnana, and the big chestnut behind her house. Narrowing her eyes further, until all she could see was shimmering green. In the middle distance rose a pinnacle of biscuit-coloured villas and dark cypress. Barga. Elegant Barga, a citadel of restaurants and concert halls only half an hour away. The square-towered Duomo loomed over red roofs tumbling in commas and swirls all the way past the city walls, walls which held the bones of San Cristoforo, the nuns of the Conservatorio – and a picture house too. Where the cafés had good coffee and people who were not your cousins, and shops selling dainty lacework, which you could imagine wearing later, as you were putting on your apron and scraping mule shit off your clogs.
She stared down, at all the big things made tiny. Her old, familiar valley. How much had changed in three months. How much, yet nothing at all. Three months ago, Joe returned. Three months ago, Vita had watched this same valley – these people dancing and sweating beside her – tear Il Duce’s posters from the walls. Signor Tutto playing his fiddle in time with pealing bells and blue-light fireworks; folk shaking each other in their desire to have it sink in, this whole valley exploding with noise and bonfires and shrieks of laughter; with smashing glass and smashing jaws, with the weeping of the faithful. In this long, deep bowl of space, she had heard Barga howl at the moon.
Il Duce was no more.
In one blistering starburst, the world remade. He’d been arrested by the King. War was over!
Vita blinked, filtering sunlight.
Way down the track, old Sergio was taking his donkey away. She watched him untie the rope from her muzzle. Once the rope was off, he took something from his pocket and fed it to the beast. Then he laid his lips on the mottled grey forehead. Vita circled them both with finger and thumb, so it looked as though she pinched them in mid-air. So close. So far.
Because none of it was true.
German soldiers had set Mussolini free. So brave, glittered her mother. They say he walked down the mountain in his bare feet.
Now the world was deeper in chaos than before, and Vita couldn’t even trust the mountains. The horizon might slip and send them all hurtling off the earth. Italy was ripped in two. Rome lay riven in a fault-line: the King and the Allies to the south, Il Duce and the Germans in the north. Her breast rose and fell. Without moving one step, she’d woken in some ‘republic’. Barga was the exact same place it had always been, yet somehow they were on a different side. And the war? This forever war? Papà promised it would end, once they all saw sense. It must.
A butterfly swept a helix above her, dancing through gaps of green. Where even was the war? It might be everywhere, but it wasn’t here. Often, when Vita was in bed, she would hear the murmur of Radio Londra, which meant Papà was awake too. And there were nights when the bombing at La Spezia would make the windows shudder. But it had always been a distant storm. La Spezia was a hundred kilometres off, and it was ships and the sea, it was distant. Beyond the circle of Barga’s mountains, there were raids on the coast. Boh – where was that? It was ships, it was sea. It was distant. Beyond the circle of Barga’s mountains, ghostly lights might burst, and the roar – there was a definite roar beyond the mountains, so the roar and the lights and the sharp rattle of teeth, yes, but it was seldom and distant; it was ships and the sea, and it had been four years still and they were wrapped in forests.
The butterfly flitted higher, flashing an underside of gold. Vita circled her finger round Monte Forato. To die of love. What a daft, wasteful thing. Surely it was better to live for it?
‘You coming?’ Cesca tapped her arm. ‘We’re off to Casa Biondi.’
Over at the top of the steps, Signor Tutto was waving his hanky at Vita. ‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Gelato.’
She felt a sensation of heat in her face. That’s where Joe was. Signor Tutto disappeared, skipping down the rampa with an agility that belied his bulk.
‘Don’t say “gelato” out loud, or Mamma will kill you.’
Il Duce had banned ice cream, because it was too American, or made you lazy and stupid or something. Which made it all the more delicious.
‘She’s going down to Barga anyway.’
‘Good. Why?’
‘One, she says Papà is embarrassing her, and two, something about a bill from the libreria? She wants to have it out with them before they close. Did you get more books without telling her?’
‘For Godsake. Two books. I need them for my exams. Papà said I could.’
Cesca shrugged. ‘And yet Mamma says you can’t. I wonder who will win. Right, you coming? I’ve had enough pretendy broom-dancing.’
Vita wanted to go, and she didn’t. ‘Who asked us? How d’you know they’re making ice cream?’
‘Spies,’ Cesca whispered. ‘Everywhere, there are spies.’
‘Francesca, that’s not funny.’
‘Vittoria. It was.’
She followed her sister down the ramp. Sommocolonia was built in tight circles round the highest part, circles that grew more generous as you left the church and towers, and descended the cobbled stairs to where the village walls rose. High stone walls that held the very streets in place. It was cool there, cool against your cheek as you skirted thorns, and the drape of ferns and thyme spilling, looking at the flow of mountain upon mountain, and purple chives and yellow marigolds.
‘Was it Joe?’
‘Ooh, Joe.’ Cesca nudged her. ‘Oh, Joe – ooh, mio bello Joe.’
‘Shut up.’
‘But you lo—ove him. Renata says you two—’
‘’Course I do. He’s a Guidi.’
‘You love Joe because he’s lovely. You know,’ Cesca kicked a pebble, ‘I checked with Sister Cristina. He’s more the Biondis’ than ours. Because of Zia Antonia-rest-in-peace
.’
It was a family tradition to refer to their dead aunt thus. What a terrible thing, to be remembered only for dying in childbirth.
‘So?’
‘So, Joe’s dad was Zia Antonia’s brother.’
‘So?’
‘But they were only Papà’s cousins. That means Joe’s our second cousin, and second cousins are fine to marry. Not even a Hail Mary required. Sister Cristina said if Giuseppe wasn’t already spoken for, she’d probably marry him herself.’
A mosquito buzzed at Vita’s neck. She slapped it. Too many assumptions since Joe had returned to Barga. Plenty of sharp tongues and elbows.
—Oh, he’s come back for you, Vita.
—Renata had a baby by your age.
—You won’t need to bother with this teaching nonsense now.
—No, teaching’s for spinsters. And nuns! (Pause for laughter.)
Vittoria Guidi: a fruit waiting to be plucked.
‘Why have you gone so red?’
‘Because I’m hot.’
She wiped her face. Cesca was only fourteen. What did she know? Everybody loved Giuseppe, their dark and funny Scottish cousin who’d returned quietly in the confusion of this uneasy summer, just like it was any other. And yes, Vita’s fingers had curled with pleasure, and she’d primped her hair, and lined up to embrace him along with everyone else. It was good – no, it was wonderful – to see him again.
How are you? she’d whispered in his ear.
All the better for seeing you.
But they’d barely had a proper conversation since, beyond his daft jokes and winks. Mostly, Joe was with the older men, joking, labouring, playing cards; he’d often spend evenings alone. Yet, whenever the family did eat together, she could sense him watch her; sense the rest of them watching him watch her too, and this stupid, scarlet shame would rise in her skin.
The poor orphan is very hungry. Mamma missed nothing. Pass him the polenta, Vita. Yes, everyone loved Giuseppe.
Joe’s parents were dead, and his Barga family was all he had left. So they’d absorbed him as quietly as he had arrived. And he was Joe, not foreign at all. Indeed, he was almost a hero – no one had seen family from Scotland since the war began. But how did he get here? Does he know if Adela’s family. . . Ssh! Keep it quiet. Everybody keep it quiet.
Maybe that was it. Maybe Papà or Zio Orlando had told him to stay away. Squadristi sometimes visited hilltop festivals, if they were bored or thirsty. Her jaw relaxed.
‘I wish he was staying at our house,’ said Cesca.
‘Nae luck.’
Vita tried to capture the nasal way Joe spoke. Every summer when he used to visit, they’d swap words and stories: Vita, Giuseppe and assorted Biondis. If Cesca was toddling round, annoying them, they’d switch from swear words to something less profane. Joe would tell them about Paisley Abbey and the cotton mills. How the mill girls wore zoccoli too, only they called them clogs. But they don’t have ankles as pretty as yours. And he’d raise up Vita’s foot, and she’d giggle and blush.
‘He’s staying with them because he’s a master creatore di gelato. The Biondis are learning all his secrets.’
The Biondis lived down here, in one of the first houses in Sommocolonia. Where La Limonaia – the Guidi house – had its rolling garden, Casa Biondi had terraced rock, patches of heather by the door and a shared piece of land further up the mountain.
Vita rapped the shutter. ‘Renata!’
‘In the kitchen.’
Bars of light slid across the flagstones. Facing them was the massive fireplace, with its charcoal burners in a recessed metal grate. In these fornelli, Renata cooked the most delicious food. A pot stood ready, full of water. Renata was only a handful of years older than Vita, yet so capable and sure: sprinkling flour, rolling pasta on a marble slab. The big wooden madia behind her was open, its pile of flour for that week’s bread almost hidden by the large sack of farina dolce. Zio Orlando’s prized radio sat beside it, sending out waves of ‘Caro Papà’. He and Papà were the only two men on the hillside to own such treasures.
‘Ciao.’ Vita kissed her. Renata was a good friend, but, beside her cousin’s wife, Vita always felt a little useless. Books did not impress a woman who ran her own home, and was mother to a five-year-old girl. ‘You not coming to the festa?’
‘Soon as I’ve finished making this.’
‘We heard there might be some gelato-making?’ said Cesca. ‘Where’s Zio Orlando?’
Orlando made gelato to sell in the hamlets round about. But it was mostly weak-tasting snow, with the odd bit of straw in. The best that could be said was that it saved you the walk to Barga. Joe, however, really was an expert. Funny how ice cream was their invention, yet here was this daft Scotsman, telling them how to do it better.
‘In the cave,’ said Renata. ‘In the huff.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, you’ll see. It’s a surprise.’ Renata lifted her rolling pin, to drape the pasta.
‘Excellent,’ said Cesca. ‘I like surprises.’
‘Any word from Gianni?’ Her cousin was fighting for Il Duce, somewhere in Rome.
Renata shook her head.
‘Well,’ said Vita, ‘no news is good news, eh?’
Renata paused, a spray of tagliatelle in her hand.
‘You know what I mean. I mean like—’
‘I know what you mean.’ Renata dropped the pasta in the pot. ‘On you go. They’re desperate for an audience.’
They entered the long, windowless room that burrowed into the hill. Walls of pure, cold rock. Vita heard laughter. Joe. She was glad of the cool, and the momentary dark. An ornate wooden bedstead stood beside some sacks. Candles in wine bottles on top of a pile of wooden crates. In the shadows were Renata’s daughter, Rosa, and Zio Orlando, arms folded. An electric wire had been strung to the ceiling, one single bulb shining on the stars of the show.
‘Buona sera, ladies!’ Signor Tutto kissed his fingers. He had his other arm round Joe, who didn’t even look up. ‘Come and enjoy our little demonstration. This beauty is the latest thing.’
‘This beauty’ was a wooden bucket, with rope lugs and a metal churn in the middle. Signor Tutto tapped the side. ‘From a friend, who owed me a little favour.’
‘That thing is unhygienic,’ said Zio Orlando. ‘You must use mountain snow. And beat it by hand.’
‘No. This is how we do it back home. Ciao, Cesca.’ Joe bowed to them, pushing his black hair from his eyes. ‘Ciao, Dolce Vita. Nice dress.’
‘I thought you were coming to the dance?’ In the cave, Vita’s voice sounded shrill.
‘Ah, but ice cream called. . . Now, see down the side here?’ Without asking, Joe grabbed her hand, slipped it in the gap between churn and pail. ‘First, we fill the sides with ice. Crushed ice.’ With his other hand, he thumped a hammer down hard on the tea towel, causing Cesca to shriek and all of them to jump. Vita removed her hand from the pail. ‘You’re an idiot.’ Her skin was thrumming.
‘Why, thank you.’ Carefully, he unfolded the towel and poured the broken ice crystals into the gap. ‘And then, a spoonful of salt.’
‘Salt? That’s disgusting,’ said Orlando.
‘Don’t worry, zio, it’s not for tasting; it keeps the freezing point down. Keeps it nice and slick. Next, we add our fior di latte. . . what?’
Rosa was laughing. ‘You said “lahg-ee”! You sound like Sergio’s donkey.’
‘When it’s sick,’ added Cesca.
‘Right, we add our run-ee creem then – that better?’
This set them off again.
Italian with a Glasgow twang: bargaweegie, Joe called it. In Barga, it was commonplace – it was how her own father spoke. Lots of barghigiani had made the journey from Italy to Scotland. Folk like Papà’s grandfather, leaving dirt-poor Tuscany for the opportunity of foreign shores. Only took one brave soul to jump, tell those back home: Sì, it was cold, but it wasn’t so bad. Or wisny. They say ‘wisny’ here. You should come. The people are
nice. They seem to like us, like our gesso figurines, our gelato. So others came and joined their kin, made their pennies, sent them home with their sons to buy land and wives, grow families, and those families returned their sons and daughters to Scotland, weaving to and fro in a backstitch of generations. Blending gelato and selling chips.
But there were no easy blends in Italy any more.
‘Fine. This is all for me and Dolce Vita, then.’
‘Stop calling me that.’
‘Alright, Dolce.’ He winked at Cesca. ‘She turned out strict, didn’t she?’
‘Well, she is going to be a teacher.’
‘Ach, girls don’t need to work. Not the pretty ones.’
His hair needed to be cut; it kept falling over his face. Suddenly, his good-natured silliness became as clanging as his accent. Her cousin Gianni was missing, there were boys out there in pain, and here was Joe, having a great laugh. Surely his country was at war too? With them, in fact. The racing in Vita’s blood became unpleasant.
‘I mean it, Giuseppe.’
‘Oh-ho,’ said Zio Orlando. ‘That girl is going to be such a match for you, boy.’
Joe stared at her. She stared back.
‘Anyway. . .’ Signor Tutto’s voice echoed in the cave. ‘Now for the magic ingredient.’ He held a couple of small bottles aloft. ‘Sugar syrup. We’ve been experimenting.’
‘What’s wrong with plain?’ said Orlando. ‘Plain, chocolate and strawberry.’
‘But why?’ said Cesca. ‘What about every flavour in the world?’
‘I agree. So let’s have tutti-frutti – with a rosemary twist.’ Joe trickled some ruby-coloured liquid inside the pail. ‘Drum roll, ladies.’ The girls banged their fists on the table. Joe pressed the lid onto the bucket, firming it round to make a tight seal. He spun it vigorously, the veins on his forearms blue. He had such pale skin compared to the rest of them. Same Guidi nose though. He took off the lid, churned it more with a wooden stick.
‘What do you think?’
Zio Orlando peered in. ‘Looks alright.’
‘Who wants to try?’ said Joe.
The Sound of the Hours Page 2
