The Making of Christina

by Meredith Jaffe

  How Constance could have allowed this to happen was beyond her. And how much Mary knew of this liaison, Christina could never know, but she wondered if it went some way in explaining why Mary had fled the Blue Mountains. Not vengeance after all, but humiliation.

  chapter seventeen

  One Week Till Christmas

  Christina holds open the car door and helps Rosa make the awkward move to sit in the back seat. She passes Rosa her navy cardigan, which Rosa will wear, despite the heat.

  ‘I wish you’d take the passenger seat, Rosa,’ says Matthias, turning the brim of his hat around and around in his hands.

  ‘No, Matthias, Tina needs the leg room.’ Rosa wriggles across the middle of the back seat and flaps her hand over her shoulder until it catches the strap of the seatbelt. ‘Anyway, I don’t like sitting in the sun.’

  ‘You sure you don’t want me to drive, Matthias,’ Christina offers again. ‘It’s a long trip.’

  Matthias answers by settling his hat on his head and himself in the driver’s seat. He adjusts the rear-vision mirror a fraction and catches Rosa’s eye. ‘I don’t mind the drive, Christina,’ he says. ‘I find it relaxing.’

  Christina contemplates joining her mother in the back seat. It seems wrong sitting up front but Matthias has never made the trip to the nut farm and someone must navigate. For as long as Christina can remember, the drive to Pleasant Valley has signalled the true beginning of Christmas. The rest of town might string up fairy lights and tinsel, but for the Clementes the annual pilgrimage to buy chestnuts is the marker from which they count down the days. Except Christina sits here, up front, in her mother’s place. And this man, whose hand seeks the constant reassurance of the gear stick, who is vigilant in checking the rear-vision mirror and maintaining a constant speed of ninety kilometres per hour in a hundred zone, should not be driving them.

  Her father always drove with reckless attention. Steering whilst resting an elbow out the window, searching the radio for a song he liked. A speed sign announcing a hundred was an invitation to nudge the car up to one-twenty. The rear-vision mirror was for winking at first Christina and then Bianca in the back seat. Except for the Christmas before last. That year Bianca had sat in the driver’s seat, Massimo by her side. Bianca had her learner’s permit and was now officially allowed to drive. Christina remembers how impressed her father was at Bianca’s driving skills.

  ‘I don’t know why, Papa. I was driving on the farm as soon as my feet reached the pedals. Even before that you used to let me sit on your lap and steer.’

  Jackson had taught Bianca to drive when she was twelve. They were always tootling all over the farm in the old ute. Christina had thought nothing of it. That’s not true. She had thought that’s what being a good father was all about. She scratches at her arm, as if peeling back the layers to the truth beneath, and stares at the familiar landscape rolling by.

  Matthias tunes the radio to a talkback station and offers a running commentary on the topic of the day. His incessant chatter annoys Christina and highlights the absence of those she’d rather were here. She sees Rosa’s reflection in the window and wonders if she too feels the lack, but Rosa’s eyes are closed, her hands clasped in her lap. Asleep or shutting herself off, Christina cannot tell.

  Christina and Bianca have never missed a Christmas at Casa Clemente. It has been a constant in their lives. Her parents sent Christina the airfare when she was an impoverished student. It outlasted Jamie, became a retreat in her years as a single mother and a source of tension with Jackson, who insisted on spending Christmas with Sarah and the kids. ‘But we’re your family now,’ Christina would argue. ‘Mama will be insulted. Can’t you make an exception, just this once?’ But Jackson never made exceptions. So every year Christina and Bianca arrived Christmas week and stayed until 6 January. Neither Rosa nor Massimo mentioned Jackson’s absence and Bianca flourished under her grandparents’ doting attention.

  Every day of those two weeks they spent at the farm followed a pattern set as much by Italian traditions as by Rosa’s own. In the week leading up to Christmas they prepare special seasonal dishes, and in order to make those dishes, they take the two-hour journey to the Pleasant Valley Nut Farm. Bianca is late. She should be here. It’s time she came home.

  ‘What are we buying again?’ Matthias asks, circling the car park searching for a shady spot under one of the spreading trees.

  Christina feels he is making a point about the value of this trip. She wants to tell him to grab the first available spot, not to be so pedantic, but he is her mother’s friend, not hers. It is not her place to say.

  A family walks across the car park from the crowded produce shed carrying boxes of peaches and cherries. Matthias puts his indicator on and waits as they pack the boxes in the car boot and their youngest son relieves himself behind the tree trunk. Matthias waves a thankyou as they vacate one of the few shady spots available on such a busy day. Christina bites back her frustration. Massimo would never have bothered, nor would she. A spot is a spot.

  In the crowded shed, ragged queues radiate from the open boxes of nuts. Mounds of dried cranberries, cherries, apricots and raisins perfume the air with musty sweetness. Rosa grabs Christina’s arm and together they muscle through the crowd, parting it with their determination. Before they leave, they will buy small quantities of the nuts and fruits with which to make panforte, and uncracked nuts to eat fresh over the holidays. However, they don’t drive all this way, year after year, for produce easily obtained at the markets in town. They are here for the chestnuts.

  Once, when she was in her twenties, Christina made the mistake of buying freeze-dried chestnuts she had found in a gourmet food emporium in Sydney. ‘Look, Mama, aren’t these great? So much easier than cooking and peeling them yourself,’ she said. As she took the package, Rosa acted as if Christina were the cat offering her a rat’s carcass. Years later, Christina found the packet crusty with ice buried at the bottom of the chest freezer.

  Of course, she now appreciates why they make this annual pilgrimage. Hidden in the coolroom at Pleasant Valley Nut Farm are fresh nuts available to only a handful of devotees. Aficionados know that what makes these nuts extraordinary is their unseasonal availability in the Australian summer. Christina googled it once. In the southern hemisphere, the chestnut season is late March to May and modern preservation techniques mean fresh nuts can be stored for up to three months but then the bounty is over.

  However, an old Croatian man, as shrivelled as the nuts he produces, owns Pleasant Valley Nut Farm. Through some magical hybridisation of late-flowering cultivars, careful grafting and a cool microclimate, he is able to produce fresh chestnuts in time for Christmas. These days his sons and grandsons run the farm, but he still oversees the production of his special nut trees. His chestnuts are a genuine Christmas miracle.

  Years ago, after much tinkering and failure, Massimo converted an old deep fryer into a chestnut roaster. It allowed enough steam in to make the tough chestnut skins easy to peel and cooked the kernels to perfection. The Clementes became a family who enjoyed the deep pleasure of roasted chestnuts in winter and the Christmas indulgence of Rosa’s chestnut tortelli – Baby Jesus’ Pillows.

  On the other side of the crowd, Rosa nods at one of the girls serving and looks towards the coolroom. The girl shouts to the back of the shed and one of the Croatian’s grandsons appears. He recognises Rosa, kisses her cheeks three times and repeats the ritual with Christina before sliding into the coolroom. He reappears with a box of cherries stacked on top of a styrofoam box full of chestnuts. Rosa turns to Christina and she passes over the box of frozen quail carcasses she carries. The transaction is complete.

  They stack the boxes inside the esky used to transport the quail and because Rosa worries that the cherries might turn in the heat of the boot, the three of them climb back in the car and make the return journey to Casa Clemente.

  The following da
y, the real work begins. On Christmas Eve they will trek to the coast to pick up fresh oysters and the tiny sweet school prawns Rosa prefers. In the days in between, they will rise at dawn and cook until the sun has long set.

  Christina is awake early. She ties her hair from her face and inspects her hands and nails with extra care as this year these hands will be her mother’s. Rosa is already at the kitchen table sorting cherries into piles. The softer ones, destined for cherry jam, Rosa slices open with a paring knife and drops into a large pot. The firm cherries will be chilled and served after lunch on Christmas Day. Christina makes coffee and surveys the benches hidden under jars and packages, the fresh fruit on the kitchen table, her mother’s homemade cheeses, pouring cream, double cream and sour cream lining the top shelf of the fridge. She pours two mugs of coffee and hands one to Rosa.

  ‘Mama, who exactly are you expecting for Christmas?’ It is as neutral a question as she can contrive.

  Rosa continues separating the cherries into jam and eating piles. ‘I’ve invited Matthias. He’s all on his own, you know.’

  Christina purses her lips. It would be petulant of her to object to Matthias joining them for Christmas lunch. Ever since his wife died, he’s joined the Clementes on Christmas Eve, bringing fragrant apricots from his orchard to go with Rosa’s soft cheeses. But this is not what Christina means. She tries a different tack.

  ‘We haven’t heard from Bianca since Hawaii, Mama. So much food seems a waste if there’s only the three of us.’ To emphasise her point, she adds, ‘None of us are big eaters.’

  Rosa does her one-shoulder shrug. ‘Bianca will come. Anyway, it saves cooking for the rest of the holidays.’

  Christina rubs her eyes; they are scratchy from lack of sleep. Last night she dreamed the same confused dream she often does. It is a nightmare really and she lay awake until the birds welcomed the dawn. Bianca slept poorly for years. So badly that Christina took her to the doctor about it. Bianca had not wanted to go and refused to answer the doctor’s questions. In fact, Christina now recalls, she outright lied, saying she only slept badly ‘sometimes’. He suggested a mild sedative. Christina had the script filled but she had no way of knowing if Bianca actually took them. She suspected not because some nights Bianca cried out in a desperate pitch of terror and Christina would slide from her bed and race to her side. She remembers Bianca sitting on her bed, knees drawn to her chest, her head buried in her lap trying to stifle the sobs.

  ‘It’s all right, sweetheart,’ Christina would say, rubbing soothing circles around Bianca’s back, wondering at the cause of her daughter’s distress. It’s not that she didn’t try to alleviate Bianca’s pain, but every time Christina reflects on those years, the woeful inadequacy of her response stabs her afresh.

  There would be Bianca, heaving and crying, but never once did she share the contents of her dreams, although Christina asked again and again. Always Bianca said she couldn’t remember. So Christina would make her warm milk and stay with her, singing remembered fragments of ‘You Are My Sunshine’ until she went back to sleep. Treating her thirteen-, fourteen-, then fifteen-year-old daughter as if she were three. Once Bianca’s breathing had settled, Christina would take Bluey Baa-Baa from where he now lived on the chest of drawers and tuck him in his old spot under Bianca’s arm. In the morning, Christina would see the dark smudges in the hollows of her eyes and know she had not slept for long. But every time she tried to tackle Bianca on the issue, Bianca pushed her away. I’m fine. Stop hassling me, Mum. In the end, Christina had assumed that she would just have to trust Bianca to make her own judgements about her wellbeing. It was not like she could force her to take the tablets.

  Pouring them both another coffee, Christina pushes the memory away. ‘Do you want the oven on yet, Mama?’

  Rosa nods and asks Christina to fetch her the potato masher. She stands over the pot of cherries, pounding them to pulp, then adds sugar and the juice of a couple of lemons. Christina carries the pot to the stove and, as the cherries simmer, wipes down the kitchen bench and boils more coffee.

  The length of each chore measures the hours. They feed the poultry, make panforte, biscotti and cherry jam. In town Christina picks up pancetta and a kilo of Mr Pucciarelli’s pork and fennel sausages for the stuffing and checks the post box in case Bianca has sent word. Staring into the hollow box, she wonders what she must do to bring her daughter back.

  When the truth came out, Bianca’s insomnia disappeared and Christina’s started. The telling had been Bianca’s saving, the knowing Christina’s undoing. Now it is her turn to wake in the night, gulping for air. It is always the same dream.

  Bianca is stuck inside the house, Christina dashes from locked window to locked window, pulling uselessly on door handles. She can hear Bianca crying, ‘Help me, Mummy! Help me!’ Finally, Christina breaks in and runs down an endless hall, following the crying voice. ‘Help me, please. I can’t find Bluey Baa-Baa. I can’t find him anywhere.’

  There’s just that disembodied voice. Christina runs towards it and trips, ending up sprawled on the floor. Sobbing, she looks around to see what fell her and sees a bloody carcass like roadkill. Crawling over to the mauled thing, she prods the eviscerated remains. A leg rolls away under the pressure and reveals a patch of blue. Screaming, Christina gathers the bundle in her arms but it is too late. Bluey Baa-Baa is dead and the house is silent.

  Whilst Rosa bathes, Christina gathers salad greens for dinner. The geese honk softly, acknowledging rather than rebuffing her presence. She shakes the dirt from the leaves and puts them in a colander.

  The meaning of the dream is crystal clear but too late to be useful. Far better if she had been able to intuit why Bianca was having nightmares in the first place. Better still, to have circumvented the cause of the nightmares altogether. Five years she lived her fantasy, oblivious to the unpalatable truths that hovered in the periphery of her vision. Try as she might to understand why she saw nothing, or provided such a benign interpretation to what she did see, to Christina there is only one inescapable truth: there is something very wrong with her.

  The counsellor she saw off and on that year disagreed. She said that there was a pattern to predatory behaviour. Winning trust was important, creating dependency vital. Separating the victims from familiar locations and support networks, such as career, family and friends, allowed the predator to isolate and control his victims. As if that makes Christina feel any better.

  Christina hears her name being called. She has left Rosa soaking in the bath. Hurrying to her feet, she picks up the colander of leaves and shoos the geese away.

  She guides Rosa to her room where she has laid out fresh underwear, one of Massimo’s old shirts and a pair of cotton trousers. Leaving Rosa to dress, she goes to the kitchen and rinses the greens.

  Having that dream now must mean something, she thinks. Maybe it’s a premonition. Maybe Bianca isn’t coming back. Panforte, gingerbread angels or Baby Jesus’ Pillows are not enough to entice Bianca home to face her mother again. Christina smacks her palms against the draining board. There is too much food here. All that hope and love poured into preparing a meal that will be fed to the animals. It is such a waste.

  chapter eighteen

  The discovery of the suitcase changed everything for Christina. After dropping Bianca at the school bus, she’d rush home, make a cup of coffee and head back to the hexagonal room. There, as she laid out the photos, letters and drawings on the floor, a growing sadness for Genevieve enveloped her. Here was a girl caught up in a series of events that in the end overtook her. Too young to blame for the tragedy but fate was always cupped in fragile hands.

  Although her evidence was circumstantial and some aspects would always remain a mystery, Christina thought she had enough pieces of the puzzle to understand why Bartholomew Rivers went from being a rising star to disappearing into obscurity.

  Even without Sophia, anyone examining the volume of
drawings concealed in the locked room would conclude that Rivers was obsessed with Genevieve. He drew her everywhere and from every angle. Seen through a twenty-first century lens, the images were deeply disturbing. Genevieve was still a child really, and young enough to be his daughter. Imagine if it had been Bianca?

  Some months after Mary’s hasty departure, Constance Sutton also left abruptly. They were all living under the same roof. It beggared belief that Constance Sutton was clueless as to Rivers’ transgressions. Christina believed Rivers had seduced Genevieve, the second painting supported that theory, as did the sheaf of drawings. But what lay behind the images? Art galleries were filled with pictures of naked young women, many in far more compromising positions than Genevieve. Obviously, it was impossible to draw a woman in these positions without her knowledge and consent but that did not make it right. Were the social mores of the 1920s so far removed from today’s values? It was not too big a leap to conclude that what she called seduction may very well have been coercion. After all, Rivers had economic power over all three women. That he was older, attractive, artistic were also qualities bound to bewitch an impressionable young woman. No doubt flattered, Genevieve must have found Rivers obvious attraction to her intoxicating. Unaware that Rivers was more than happy to use Genevieve’s adoration as his weapon.

  Christina spent her days mulling over this, sifting through the photos and letters, a glass of wine by her side. She heard the slam of the front door, the scrape of the schoolbag as Bianca flung it to the floor. Bianca called, ‘Mum?’ and Christina shouted, ‘In here,’ pleased to hear Bianca’s voice and curious as to why her daughter was keen to speak with her.