The Last of the Bonegilla Girls

by Victoria Purman

  Sometimes, it was only her secret that got her through the days and weeks and months and years. Effie was only six months old; Vasiliki had spent almost seven years pregnant or breastfeeding. She was the kind of tired only mothers knew. And there was Steve the night before, hinting that they should have another baby. He’d come home from work late, as usual, having had to wait until the milk bar closed and then supervise the cleaning up, and he’d stripped off his clothes and snuggled into bed next to her. She’d been asleep for hours by then and roused to his breath smelling like ouzo.

  ‘Vasiliki,’ he’d moaned as he’d pressed his erection into her back and sloppily kissed the back of her neck. He wanted sex every day. Every single day.

  ‘Go away. You stink,’ she’d said, reaching behind her and slapping him on the thigh.

  ‘My beautiful wife.’

  ‘My drunk husband.’

  ‘C’mon, Vasiliki. We can make a son this time. Don’t you think there are too many girls in this family already?’

  With a shove from his wife, he’d rolled onto his back. Within half a minute, he’d begun to snore.

  She had never once complained about him coming home late like this, for all the extra hours she was alone with the children, for all the time she was alone with herself after they’d reluctantly gone to sleep.

  Vasiliki was relieved. She didn’t want to have sex with her husband because she didn’t want another baby. Four was more than enough. When she’d asked Steve to pull out before, well before, he’d said, ‘Yeah, yeah, oh, I will, I will, just a bit more, wait just a minute, I’m about to …’

  But he’d done the exact opposite every time.

  She was done with babies.

  At a Christmas party the year before, some of her Greek friends had been talking about an Australian doctor who was giving medicine to married women so they didn’t have to have babies if they didn’t want to.

  ‘It’s called …’ Her friend Athena had glanced around the shed in the family’s backyard to make sure none of their husbands or mothers-in-law could hear. ‘It’s called the Pill.’ Elena had six children already: four boys and two girls. Vasiliki could completely understand why she was so interested in this miracle you swallowed to stop more babies.

  ‘The Pill?’ Vasiliki said. ‘How does it stop the babies?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. But my cousin’s friend’s neighbour is taking it. She got it from a doctor in Fitzroy.’

  ‘And you have to take this medicine every day?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Athena whispered. ‘Like Bex.’

  Vasiliki didn’t know what Steve would think if he found out she was taking a pill like that. She wanted to believe what Athena had said but she was cautious about asking the family doctor about it. He was an old Australian man with grey hair and a stooped back with a surgery in the next suburb. He’d served in the war and had little tolerance for babies or, in fact, any of his patients. She had to walk for forty-five minutes to get there, pushing the pram with two of the girls inside it and the older two walking alongside, which sometimes made her late. Neither the doctor nor the receptionist had any sympathy for a mother juggling four children and they always spoke loudly and slowly to her as if she didn’t understand English. She understood every word, especially their complaints under their breaths about these new Australians.

  ‘I do speak English,’ she’d wanted to shout at them. ‘And stop being so bloody rude.’ She liked the word bloody.

  But she never did shout at strangers that way. She smiled and thanked the doctor profusely when he pronounced her babies well, when he told her they’d been putting on weight and that it was about time the little one was put on the bottle.

  ‘Formula is much better for the baby than breastmilk. You’ll know exactly how much the child is consuming,’ he’d said, condescending to her over the tops of his silver wire-rimmed glasses. He’d slipped his fountain pen into the top pocket of his white coat and stood up, just like that. The appointment was always over when he decided it was over.

  Vasiliki decided she would think about the pills, maybe. She would perhaps look out for advertisements on the television during Bandstand, or search the advertisements in the Women’s Weekly. She liked that magazine very much, when she had a few minutes to sit at the kitchen table with a black coffee and a cigarette, although she sometimes had trouble keeping track of all the English princesses who were getting married.

  She was living the life arranged for her by her parents. Her marriage to Steve had been happy on the whole, and she had her obligations to her own mother and now her four daughters. Her role in life was to make a home, cook and clean, raise children and make sure they had the best of everything. She knew in her heart she would never have been able to have this life with Tom. How would he fit in out there in the backyard with all those Greeks?

  Over the years, Frances’s letters had conveyed snippets of information about him. He was still in London working as a lawyer. There had been no mention of marriage or children, which made her so sad for him. He deserved to be happy. She wanted nothing more for him than that.

  She had wrestled for years with the guilt of not telling him about his daughter. How to explain why she had kept it a secret all this time? How could she tell Steve the truth, knowing it would break his heart? And her parents? Some things were better left unsaid. No good would come of telling the truth.

  Aphrodite moved in her sleep, murmuring something in her soft little voice. Vasiliki slipped off her stilettos and lay down next to her daughter.

  Her heart. Her joy. Her lifelong secret.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  1964

  Someone whispered under their breath. ‘Here she comes.’

  Frances pulled her quivering lips together and tried not to cry when she turned and saw her beautiful friend Iliana walking up the aisle towards the pulpit. Her wedding dress was so voluptuous that its Chantilly lace skirt, puffed up by voluminous petticoats, and her twenty-foot-long veil brushed against the wooden pews on either side of the aisle of St Fiacre’s in Leichhardt. The swish was accompanied by gasps of delight as guests on both sides of the church—her family on the left and his on the right—saw the bride on the arm of her beaming father. Everyone stood. Somewhere, someone was singing Ava Maria and Frances found herself holding her breath with the beauty of it. Iliana looked up to the altar, towards her fiancé, Vinnie, and Frances could see her beaming smile. There was a loud sigh and when she glanced across at Vinnie, there were tears rolling down his cheeks.

  Frances gripped her bouquet and tried to focus. Don’t look at Iliana or you will cry. Don’t look at Vinnie again or you will cry.

  And in particular, don’t you dare look at the best man.

  When Ava Maria ended, the church organist’s rendition of the bridal waltz began and by the time it reached its full crescendo Iliana was at her future husband’s side. She looked radiant.

  Frances’s fellow bridesmaids, all seven of them, stood in silent and identical formation. Their pale blue sleeveless gowns with narrow skirts matched the groomsmens’ ties. They held cascading bouquets of white roses and carnations.

  It had been a long time since Frances had dressed up—she’d managed to avoid social situations for a long while—and she was wearing more make-up than she had ever worn in her life, including eyeliner expertly applied by Iliana’s maid of honour, her sister-in-law Domenica. Her face was stiff and her eyelashes felt as if she’d walked into a spider’s web. As well as all the bridesmaids, there was a best man and seven attendants. Frances thought they all looked like Dean Martin. So debonair. So handsome.

  And when she let herself take a glance at Massimo, the best man, she thought he was the most handsome of them all. He stared back at her across the altar, his dark eyes questioning and curious, intent on her. When he turned this gaze on her, she still felt like the only woman in the world. Still, after all these years.

  She had never got over him.

  It had been almos
t six years since she’d left Cooma. Iliana had written and told her about Massimo’s engagement. Frances had bought a bottle of gin and got so terribly drunk she’d had to have the next day off school, pleading a stomach flu. She still felt like crying at the unfairness of it all, of what had happened and why she’d had to say no to him. So she looked away, concentrated on keeping her bouquet straight in her hands. She gripped it so tight her fingers ached. Light beamed down from the stained-glass windows. Massimo was married now. He was happy.

  She was so glad of it.

  I could never have made him happy, not back then. Not now. Not ever.

  She wished Vasiliki and Elizabeta were here, but too many children and not enough money—in Elizabeta’s case—meant they hadn’t been able to come to Sydney.

  The priest cleared his throat and Frances’s attention snapped back to the present. ‘O, Iliana, prendo te, Vincenzo …’

  ‘I, Iliana, take you, Vincenzo, as my husband and promise to be faithful to you always, in joy and in pain, in health and in sickness, and to love you and every day honour you, for the rest of my life.’

  The groom slipped the ring on the bride’s finger and when they kissed, a wave of emotion rose up from the guests and Iliana and Vinnie kissed again, to a loud cheer.

  Iliana had chosen the tallest wedding cake Frances had ever seen. Nine tiers high, with bright white icing and a lace pattern that matched her dress, it might be just enough for the two hundred guests at the reception. The huge room at the reception centre was decorated with swathes of fabric draped from the ceiling and small chandeliers. Mirrors reflected the light and flickered like stars on the bridal couple, and rows and rows of tables were full of guests.

  Frances sat quietly at the top table during most of the formalities of the reception. She picked at each and every plate put in front of her to be polite, but she wasn’t really hungry at all. She had slipped her bomboniere and her place card into her purse as souvenirs of the special day, and had stopped at two glasses of prosecco. Just enough to calm her but not enough to stop her wishing for things she couldn’t have. Speeches had been made—in Italian—and when it was time for the bride and groom’s first dance, Vinnie swept his wife into his arms and they moved as one around the parquetry dance floor brought in especially for the occasion. The tears in Iliana’s eyes were expressions of true joy. Frances spotted Giuseppe and Agata. They were crying and hugging each other. How lucky they were to have two children already married. How lucky Iliana was to have married for love.

  Halfway through the bridal waltz, Massimo and Domenica joined the bride and groom, as matron of honour and best man, and slowly, the groomsmen moved behind the bridal table to reach for the hand of their bridesmaid. Iliana’s dance partner was Claudio. He held out a hand to her and she nodded politely. He was an excellent dancer, but spoke little English, which meant their turn about the floor was polite and almost wordless. There were cheers when the first song ended and Claudio gave Frances a little bow and then disappeared.

  She wasn’t alone for more than a moment when Massimo was by her side.

  ‘Frances.’

  ‘Hello, Massimo.’ That’s all she could bear to say. There were no other words for this man, this good man whose heart she had broken when she’d said no to his proposal back in Cooma. And now he was standing right by her, his hand out, wordlessly asking her to dance. How could she take his hand?

  But she did. She couldn’t stop herself. She allowed him to pull her close, and she came alive when his hand gently caressed the small of her back. She followed his lead, turning, moving, his thighs against hers, surrounded by him. This was easier than talking, easier than explaining all that had happened to her since she’d seen him last.

  She lifted her gaze to his face to see what expression was there. Would it be anger or hate or pity? His full lips were parted as if he was about to speak but he said nothing. He just looked at her, his dark eyes full of something she didn’t want to see. Something that shouldn’t have been there.

  ‘Iliana is such a beautiful bride.’ Frances glanced over her shoulder. Iliana and Vinnie had returned to the wedding table and were eating wedding cake. She was spooning huge chunks into Vinnie’s mouth and he was laughing hard. She supposed that wasn’t the only thing they had a hunger for.

  ‘She is. Beautiful and happy. Vinnie is a very good man.’

  ‘Iliana has written to me about him. She loves him very much. She told me she met him at your wedding.’

  Massimo’s eyes narrowed. Was she imagining things or had he pulled her in tighter? ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry I haven’t had the chance before today to say congratulations to you and your wife.’

  ‘Thank you.’ They moved silently around the dance floor to the beat of the music, one step after another, one heart-beat after another, one song ending and another beginning. There seemed to be so much to say but Frances couldn’t find a place to start. When Massimo broke the silence, she exhaled with relief.

  ‘Iliana tells me you’re teaching here in Sydney now.’

  She swallowed. ‘Yes, that’s right. It’s a new primary school in the western suburbs. Australia is having a baby boom, don’t you know?’

  ‘I know all about it. We’re building the houses they are living in.’

  ‘Your business is doing very well, Iliana tells me. Congratulations.’

  He was proud of that, she could hear it in his voice. ‘We have worked very hard. My father and Iliana, especially.’

  ‘I’m sure you have worked hard, too.’ Under her hand, his shoulders felt strong. ‘I hope you are happy being married, Massimo.’ Frances had to say it. She had loved him since Bonegilla, but she had rejected him in Cooma. He had wanted to marry her, had wanted to keep the baby and had offered to raise it as his own, but she couldn’t have saddled him with another man’s child. It wasn’t his burden to take on. And she wouldn’t have been able to live with the thought that he was doing it out of honour, of obligation, rather than love. That’s all she had ever wanted of him. Love, uncomplicated.

  Frances breathed deep, willing away the ache inside her chest. ‘And how is your son? His name is Giuseppe, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. He has the name of my father. His nonno. He’s three months old now.’ This made Massimo smile, at last.

  Frances leaned up close to his ear. ‘I’m sure he looks just like you. Handsome as anything.’

  Massimo smiled down at her. ‘He’s a beautiful little boy.’

  Did he know how lucky he was?

  Her own baby—not a baby anymore—would be six years old by now. The age of the students in her classroom. Most days Frances wouldn’t think about her own son, what kind of toys he might be playing with, what kind of life he had. Until a little boy from her class fell in the playground and scraped his knee, or another needed help with his reader, and then she would think about all the things mothers did for their children: comforted them when they fell, read to them when they wanted a story, hugged them when they needed love.

  Frances had returned to Bonegilla the day after Massimo’s proposal. She had said her tearful goodbyes to Iliana, Giuseppe and Agata and the young boys at the Cooma bus station. Massimo wasn’t there. Agata had pressed a brown paper-wrapped parcel in her hands as she got on the bus. Inside was a knitted blanket. She had covered her knees with it all the way back to Bonegilla.

  She hadn’t called ahead to tell her parents she was coming home. When she arrived back at Bonegilla late that next night, eight months pregnant and lugging her suitcase, her mother had turned a ghostly shade of grey. She had remained cloistered away until the time came, and her mother had driven her to a hospital in Albury to give birth—having the baby in the Bonegilla hospital was never an option—and the doctor had arranged an adoption with a local couple. They were a good Christian family, he’d reassured her parents, who would welcome Frances’s baby into their home with loving arms and open hearts, despite his sin of being born to a single mother.

 
; Hours after giving birth, the shock of it still trembling in every part of her body, Frances had insisted on giving her son a name. ‘He deserves that, at least,’ she’d told herself. The official paperwork was laid out on the rollaway table in front of her. Her pen hovered over the section marked Father’s Name. She had been warned not to fill it in, that there was no good to come of roping an innocent man into the scandal and anyway, did she even know who the real father was? She wished she could put Massimo’s name there. She wished he was the father of her baby.

  But he wasn’t. Instead, she gave his name to her son.

  In the line where she had to record her baby’s birth name, she wrote Massimo Reginald, adding Reginald after her father. She hadn’t been able to accept Massimo’s proposal, but she had paid tribute to his honourable offer in the only way she had known how.

  Six years ago still felt like yesterday.

  She felt it then, the quivering of those post-birth hours, the trembling inside her chest. The wet pain between her legs, deadened with drugs and thick cloths to catch the bleeding, which went on for weeks. The shame of her baby flared in her cheeks. The shame of wanting Massimo sat like a stone in her gut.

  ‘Frances?’

  Massimo’s hand pressed ever so slightly more firmly into the small of her back. He guided her around another couple on the dance floor.

  ‘Francesca?’ Her real-life Massimo bent down a little to look into her eyes. ‘Are you dreaming?’