by Judy Nunn
‘Mamma, Kalgoorlie is one of the most exciting mining cities in the world. The goldfields here are young and rich, their potential is endless …’
‘All right, Paolo, all right,’ she turned to him, laughing. ‘You’ve convinced me. You wish to stay with us.’ She stopped laughing but there was still a smile in her eyes. ‘And you’re right, one day I will need you. But until that day, there will be no sadness in this house.’ She kissed him and returned to her washtub.
‘I’M GLAD YOU’RE staying,’ Briony said. Late that afternoon, when she’d come home from school, Paolo had told her of his talk with Caterina and there was a strong sense of sibling camaraderie as they swore their oath of secrecy. ‘Even though I lose my room,’ she added, ‘I’m glad you’re staying.
‘Don’t worry,’ Paolo assured her, ‘when I have a good job I’m going to rent my own place.’ She looked surprised and he gave her a cheeky wink in return. ‘A bloke needs his privacy too, you know.’
They were on the front verandah, Briony sitting on the wooden swinging seat which Giovanni had made for his girls as a Christmas present. Despite the fact that no amount of oil could disguise its squeak, they loved it.
‘Do you like being back?’ she asked after a moment’s pause.
‘In Kal? Yes, I love it.’ He sat on the verandah railing, his back against the corner post, and looked down the road. It was going to be a perfect autumn evening. The afternoon was still and thick with heat, but the searing bite of summer had passed. Children, home from school, played in the dusty street whilst parents watched, gathering the faintest breeze from front verandahs. Sounds from houses, a baby’s cry, the odd bark of an excited dog in a backyard. The cosy blanket of the afternoon and the familiarity of the sounds engulfed Paolo. ‘I love this place.’
Briony pushed her heels against the wooden verandah and the seat gave a protesting squeak as it started to swing. ‘Only because you got out.’
‘That’s not true, Briony. I always loved Kal. I only left to further my education.’
‘And to see the world,’ she corrected him. ‘That’s what you told me, years ago, when I was a little girl.’
‘And I meant it,’ he replied. ‘I did see the world.’
‘You saw Harvard.’ Briony’s tone was sceptical. ‘And if you hadn’t had an offer to “further your education”, I don’t reckon you would have gone at all.’
He wasn’t sure which was most annoying, the squeaking of the seat or her detached appraisal of him. But then Briony had always been ruthlessly honest, even as a child. It had been her most disarming quality, that and her sense of humour.
His obvious annoyance didn’t bother her at all as she sat crosslegged, swaying to and fro. ‘Don’t get snaky, Paolo, I just think you’re a creature of Kalgoorlie, that’s all.’
‘And what exactly is a “creature of Kalgoorlie”?’ he asked, still scowling. ‘I wasn’t even born here.’
‘And I was,’ she laughed. ‘In a humpy, in the outback. Stop looking so serious, it wasn’t an insult.’ The seat slowed down and gave its final squeak of protest. ‘Kalgoorlie can get in anyone’s blood. You don’t have to be born here.’ In the silence that followed, Briony herself became serious. ‘Kal is a place you never want to leave or a place you can’t wait to get out of.’
Her words were heartfelt. ‘And you want to get out?’ Paolo asked. She nodded. ‘It’s a place you always want to come back to, Briony.’
‘Maybe.’ She swung the seat until it squealed again. ‘But I won’t know that till I get out, will I?’
‘HUGHES VISITS THE FRONT’ the headlines proclaimed. ‘While in France, Prime Minister Hughes visited the Australian troops and was briefed by General Sir Douglas Haig …’
It was a Sunday and the whole clan was gathered at Rico and Teresa’s house. They always discussed the news from the front and it was Briony’s turn to read from the paper as they sat around the family table.
Paolo was amused to see Salvatore, yet again, dive for a place on the bench beside Briony. ‘Young Salvatore’s besotted with you,’ he’d told his sister when the clan had first gathered to welcome him home.
‘Don’t be silly, Paolo,’ she’d answered dismissively, ‘he’s a baby.’
‘Do you want to play football, Briony?’ Salvatore asked when they had finished with the newspaper and the adults were discussing the politics of the day.
‘No, I don’t.’ Briony refused to acknowledge the I-told-you-so look in Paolo’s eye. ‘Do you want me to help?’ she asked as Caterina and Teresa rose from the table to prepare the meal.
‘No, no, you children go outside and leave us some space,’ Teresa answered. ‘Caterina and I like to talk while we work.’
Rosalina jumped up immediately, but Salvatore hung back waiting for Briony.
‘I won’t be late.’ Carmelina was up from the table in a flash. She had been waiting impatiently, as usual. ‘Bye, Papa.’ She kissed the top of Rico’s head. ‘Bye, Mamma, bye everyone.’ And she was out the door.
Paolo watched her as he sat at the table with the men, Giovanni opening a bottle of red wine, Rico lighting his pipe. Carmelina always left before the meal on a Sunday. ‘It is the only time she has with her friends,’ Teresa had apologetically explained. ‘She works so hard at the restaurant.’
Carmelina had changed more than any of them, Paolo thought and he marvelled that the family couldn’t see it. What friends did she visit with such desperate anticipation? Certainly not her girlfriends. Who could the man be? Paolo wondered. And, if he was an honourable man, why the secrecy?
He had tried, as gently as possible, to broach the subject with Carmelina. ‘Why are you leaving? Stay and talk with me.’ It had been the second Sunday the family had gathered and, once again, she had left as soon as she could. He’d followed her quickly out onto the verandah. ‘I haven’t seen you for so long and we haven’t exchanged a word alone since I’ve been home.’
‘You don’t need to talk to me, Paolo, you have the whole family.’ Her smile was brittle and he knew she wanted to get away.
‘But I’ll have the whole family for the rest of the evening,’ he’d urged, ‘sit and talk to me. Just for a little while.’
‘I can’t’ She was already edging towards the verandah steps. ‘You heard Mamma, Sunday is my only day off, the only day I have to see my friends.’
‘What friends, Carmelina?’ He knew he was treading on dangerous ground. ‘What friends could be more important than your family?’
There was no pretence left in her eyes now, no attempt at a smile, brittle or otherwise. He was making her late and Louis was waiting. ‘Leave me alone.’
‘Carmelina, please. We are family, I care about you.’ He had tried to take her arm. ‘And whilst your brother is not here …’
‘I said leave me alone!’ She had wrenched her arm away and her voice had been as loud as she dared with the family sitting inside. ‘I am eighteen and what I do is none of your business.’ Carmelina hated him then—she hated them all. Italian peasants. ‘And if Enrico were here it would be none of his business either,’ she had said as she ran down the steps and into the street.
Paolo had wondered, for quite some time after that, what he should do. He dared not tell Rico. And Giovanni was a sick man, he needed no added burden. So, guiltily, Paolo kept Carmelina’s secret. Perhaps, after all, she was right. She was of age, she was a woman, and this was Australia, not a peasant community where the brothers were beholden to avenge their sisters’ honour.
Paolo persuaded himself that perhaps everything would turn out for the best. Perhaps the man with whom she was in love was honourable and Carmelina was simply keeping her affair a secret for fear of her father’s reaction. Perhaps it was only a matter of time before her beau would declare himself. If so, Paolo wished him luck. He would need to be a bold man to approach Rico.
‘Caterina tells me you have another letter from Enrico,’ Teresa said as she set the table. ‘You will read it out to us after
we’ve eaten?’
‘Of course,’ Paolo answered, meeting his mother’s eyes as she smiled an apology behind Teresa’s back.
When Paolo had received Enrico’s letter only several days previously, Caterina had made him promise to bring it to the family gathering on Sunday.
‘But you saw what happened when I read out parts of the letter he sent me from Gallipoli, Mamma,’ Paolo had protested. ‘It only gets Rico going again.’
Indeed, there had been very few portions of the letter Paolo had dared to read out. Before he had even started, Rico had embarked upon his ‘fool of a boy, fighting for a country which is not his own’ crusade.
‘I know, I know,’ Caterina had agreed, ‘and Rico will do it again, he does every time. But take the letter, Paolo. For Teresa’s sake.’ When he still appeared reluctant, she added. ‘Make it up as you go along. Teresa won’t know and it will make her happy.’
Women were so devious, Paolo had thought as he put the letter in his pocket, even his mother whom he so much admired.
‘Yes, of course I’ll read it to you,’ he said to Teresa. ‘After we’ve eaten and before we sing. I promise.’
CARMELINA CRIED OUT as the pain knifed through her. But it would ease soon. Soon she would be able to bear it without crying out.
In the rose-coloured room at Red Ruby’s, Carmelina rarely achieved her own pleasure any more. But it didn’t matter. It was his pleasure that mattered. And afterwards, when he’d defiled her, he would hold her close and kiss her gently and tell her how much he loved her.
He no longer brought the whores in to make love to her whilst he watched. ‘Just you and me, my darling,’ he’d whispered that first time and she’d been glad. He’d caressed her until she was insane with desire. ‘Every part of you is mine, Carmelina,’ he’d murmured, ‘will you pleasure me with every part of you?’ She moaned her acquiesence, there was nothing she would not do for him. And then he’d defiled her in a way she could never have imagined.
Afterwards, as she lay shocked and degraded, he made love to her with his tongue and his hands. ‘You’re mine, Carmelina,’ he whispered, ‘I own you, every part of you, I love you, I love you …’ And, unbelievably, her body had responded. She’d cried out in ecstasy even as her humiliation was still fresh in her mind. It was true. He owned her.
It was a little different these days. Sometimes he gave her her pleasure, but more often he did not, and Carmelina’s satisfaction now lay in the vows of love which followed her degradation. Louis’s pleasure was all she lived for now.
Louis himself had not expected the affair to last this long; he’d expected to be bored after six months. But how could he tire of one prepared to surrender to his every whim? Her devotion was total and his power absolute. The prospects which lay ahead were limitless and irresistible. It would be a long time before Louis Picot would tire of young Carmelina Gianni.
‘“… WE’RE BILLETED IN Sailly, in an area known as the Armentières sector. It’s named after the town of Armentières on the River Lys”.’ Paolo read Enrico’s letter out loud to the assembled family, his eyes scanning ahead for the sections he knew he must avoid.
‘“I’ll send this letter to Kal as I know you’ll be home by now. You lucky geezer”.’ Paolo looked up to catch Rico frowning. Rico didn’t like his son’s use of soldiers’ slang, be it Aussie or Tommy vernacular.
‘“Are you still thinking of joining up? Don’t be a fool, mate, stay at home—”’
‘Ah now at last he wakes up,’ Rico growled derisively.
‘Be quiet, Rico,’ Teresa snapped without even looking at him. ‘Go on, go on,’ she urged.
‘“… although I must say the countryside around Sailles is peaceful and pretty. Hard to believe there’s a war raging all about us. We’re only a couple of miles from the front line and mid-way between the towns of Ypres and Loos, both of which have seen some heavy fighting.
‘“They’re holding us in reserve and they drill us hard—the Frogs are fond of cobbled streets, a right bastard for marching on—but we have it fairly easy on the whole. The calm before the storm.
‘“The villagers are a beaut bunch and we’ve become mates with some of them. We even sat up all night last week waiting for a cow to calve. In the middle of a war, just think, a bunch of us squatting about the old stove, taking turns to stroke the cow’s head and all of us murmuring encouragement like a mob of midwives. When she had twins there was a whopping great celebration. The villagers broke out the plink plonk—white wine—and everybody got right royally stonkered. Well, not me, I’m still not mad about the stuff, but my mate had a bugger of a hangover”.’ Paolo had thought quickly and replaced the word ‘Jack’ with ‘my mate’. ‘“He tells me the local vino’s pretty rough stuff”.’
Paolo skipped ahead. He certainly couldn’t read aloud the next paragraph.
‘Yes, Jack Brearley,’ Rick had written, to Paolo’s utter amazement. ‘Bet you’re surprised. We’ve become good mates, it’s too stupid to be anything else over here. I know you’ll be glad to hear it, Paolo, you always were the peacemaker, and you were right. Jack’s as wild as ever but he’s a good mate. We even left the train for a couple of days on the trip north, I thought we’d get into terrible strife, but Jack wasn’t worried. When we reported to the nearest military headquarters and told them we’d got lost, the Tommy officer gave us a whopping dressing down, went on about the lack of discipline in the Aussie ranks and the fact that we’re noncommissioned officers now (sergeants, how about that!) and we should have more regard for our rank. On and on he went, but there was nothing he could do. You should hear Jack’s toffee-nosed Tommy imitation. Has all the blokes in stitches.
‘We’re a bit of a duo act actually. Jack does the joke-telling and I play the concertina …’
‘Go on,’ Teresa was urging once more. ‘Go on, what does he say?’
‘“… I play the concertina”,’ Paolo continued, catching his mother’s sympathetic glance.
‘I drive Jack mad with the old concertina.’ He couldn’t read that. ‘Jack says he’s spent his whole childhood listening to the bloody thing but the other blokes love it.’
‘“… the other blokes love it”,’ Paolo read out. ‘“I’m surprised I can even get a sound out of the old thing now. It’s held together with string and glue and sticking plaster. But it manages a tune and the men sing as if their hearts would break”.’
Paolo glanced up at Giovanni as he read the next part. ‘“I told Giovanni, in a letter I wrote to him from Gallipoli, that the music he gave me is my salvation, and it’s true, Paolo. Mine, and many others. I’ve seen a song raise men’s spirits the way nothing else could. I’ve seen men on the brink of madness join in a song with their mates and, for that moment at least, the horror’s forgotten.
‘“That’s all for now”.’ Paolo again skipped the next bit. ‘It’s good to be able to talk openly to someone,’ Rick had written. ‘I owe Jack my life, Paolo. At Gallipoli, he saved my life, and there’s no one in Kal I can tell, apart from you. Not even Giovanni, and I speak to Giovanni from my heart.
‘Jack and I have agreed that, when we come home, we’ll end this family feud. Why fight a war in Kal when the whole world is doing it? Kal is a place to be safe. Kal is home.’
‘“… Look after yourself”,’ Paolo read, ‘“and congratulations on Harvard and all that. You’ll be a real toff by the time I see you. Your good mate …”’ Paolo changed the ‘Rick’ to Enrico. He looked up to see Teresa with tears streaming down her face.
‘Good God, did we really send men to fight in that?’ It was after the conclusion of the third battle of Ypres, referred to as Passchendaele, that General Kiggell, Haig’s Chief of General Staff, made his first journey to within a few miles of the front. Many reports said that he wept.
General Douglas Haig, British Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, was directly responsible for the disastrous choice of terrain which resulted in a battleground that was no more than a boggy ma
rshland.
The British generals were warned that the ground on which they planned to launch their attack had been reclaimed from the sea. Centuries of labour had been employed in building and preserving the intricate drainage system of dykes and culverts and the farmers themselves were under penalty to keep their dykes clear and well maintained. Any bombardment, the generals were told, and the land would revert to marshland. Haig refused to listen.
The first two weeks of shelling proved the accuracy of the warnings. The troops were forced to lay down tracks in order to advance. If a man strayed from those tracks he could find himself up to his armpits in mud. In the first battle alone, half the British tanks were lost in the quagmire and the remaining tanks were of little use. Trenches were impossible to maintain under the relentless enemy barrage and many troops were buried alive in the mud.
Haig was advised of the appalling conditions and the prospect of failure but such opinions were unwelcome and he ignored them. The battle was to continue as planned.
‘PLAY US A song, Rick,’ Snowy said and the other half-dozen men, crouched in the ditch beside the derelict wagon, urged him on.
‘Give a bloke a break,’ Jack loudly complained, ‘we’ve had enough music for one day. The Germans have played us a whole bloody concerto—how about a bit of peace and quiet?’
Tom Brereton howled him down and the others joined in as they always did. The concertina had become a running gag between Jack Brearley and Rick Gianni and the men enjoyed it.
The gunfire had indeed been severe all day and, as night drew on and the shelling became more sporadic, the relief from the constant noise was intense. Not that they were ever entirely free of shelling. Every now and then a growl would sound overhead and, somewhere amongst the grey wasteland, a geyser of mud and water would explode into the air.
