The Sicilian Woman's Daughter

by Linda Lo Scuro

  “I wouldn’t worry about that, Zia. If Gennara copies you, it’s because you have a brilliant idea,” I say, thinking of Oscar Wilde’s ‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.’

  “I make over a hundred jar this year.”

  “That’s brilliant,” Zia, “it’ll keep you well stocked up for winter.” She likes that comment, and smiles at me. “Maria, now you bring empty jar to garden and I fill while you hold jar, then you put lid on, pass to me and I screw lid on tight.” She doesn’t trust me to twist on the lids properly.

  When we’ve finished, Zia asks: “Cuppa tea?”

  “I’d love one. Did you make any cakes today?”

  “I make cuddureddi at six o’clock this morning. They quick to make.”

  “Cuddureddi?”

  “Yeah, you remember Ziuzza. She make cuddureddi. I have old recipe.”

  I wasn’t expecting this. That brought memories back alright.

  “Yes, of course I remember her.”

  “Oh, she lovely lady. Pity big bastardi kill her. If she live to see Young Cushi today she be proud. So proud.”

  She brings out cuddureddi that look just like Ziuzza’s all those years ago when I saw the gun in her apron. Zia has even sprinkled them with sugar.

  “I’ve bought your ice-box back. The syringe is in there.” She takes it. “The ice-creams were so good,” I say. “Everyone at the barbecue thought they were simply delicious. Zia, they worked perfectly. The two women had tummy troubles and Richard...”

  “I guess... he shit for one army!” she interrupts.

  “Yes, exactly,” I say, laughing.

  “Minghiuni, pigliati chissu!” meaning: big prick, take that! She makes an arm and hand gesture suggesting that Richard get stuffed.

  She rushes off to get Humps’s bed socks, places them on the table, and irons them with her hands. “Beautiful,” she says, as she cocks her head to one side to admire them.

  “Oh, Humps’ll be pleased. They’re lovely. Thank you so much. Zia, I have some yellow wool here for my bed socks. I want yellow ones like Sicilian lemons.”

  “Ah, and like Sicilia sun.”

  “Yes,” I say, “and I want yellow pompoms, too. A hundred percent Sicilia.”

  She is visibly moved. I think I see a tear.

  “I make for you. You no worry. I start now.”

  She comes back with her knitting needles and a tray of cuddureddi. As she knits, and I eat cuddureddi, I tell her about Alberto.

  “Zia, I went to see Alberto.”

  “You tell him where sun rise and where sun set?”

  “Yes. I asked him to come clean with Giusy so that she knows where she stands.”

  “So what he say?”

  “He said that he prefers Giusy.”

  “What you tell him do?”

  “To give up Nancy, divorce his wife, and go and live with Giusy. I think he married young. Olga wasn’t the right choice.”

  “So we give Giusy another potion. She have potion for part-time Alberto. Now Giusy need full-time-Alberto potion. He need me and you to tell him what to do.”

  We laugh together.

  Then Zia tells me that she has spoken to Giulio. She sent for him and he’d been to her house that very morning. He works nights, so went to see her before going home. “I tell him where sun rise in the morning, and I tell him sun set in the evening at end of day.” Zia likes comparing a day to the start and end of life.

  “Are you sure he understood about the sunset?” I say.

  “Yeah, he know the sun go down and night come at end of day. He big bastardo, I tell you,” she says. Seemingly he wasn’t going co-operate. He told her as much himself. Calling Zia a busybody and making clear to her she was to keep out of what was the business of his and his wife’s only. “He hard head,” Zia says.

  “What’s going to happen now?” I ask.

  “Angelina and Provvi tell me they book plane ticket to Sicilia for all family.”

  “Oh, so they managed it.”

  “Now we book ticket.”

  “Are you going to Sicily? Who with?” I ask.

  “With you, silly girl.”

  “With me!”

  “With you. We go together. I no see Peppina long time.”

  Oh, my God. I was taken aback, I hadn’t seen this coming my way. Also, Zia wants to see her sister, Peppina. That is the very person I hoped never to see again in my life. Never.

  “No, sorry I can’t leave Humphrey.”

  “Englishman, he cook. He no miss you.”

  “Yes, he will. We’re very attached to one another.”

  “We only go for five day,” she says.

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  “You silly girl. You go holiday. You see you mother tomb.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  “You no think about. We go. And we invited birthday party. 27 September,” Zia says.

  “I need to talk about this with Humps. Maybe Humps can come too. He’s always wanted to go to The Village to see where my origins lie. It’s our wedding anniversary that week. We could celebrate it in Sicily.”

  “We go 26, we come back 30. Angelina family go 25. They stay longer.”

  “Does Peppina know you’re going?”

  “Yeah, she know. I telephone yesterday. I tell we go holiday, stay with Peppina.”

  “Stay with Peppina!”

  “Peppina have space.”

  “Does she know about Angelina and Provvi?”

  “Yes. I hint we need help for young man education. You no worry. She no stupid, she understand.”

  “So you’ve spoken to her about it?”

  “You silly girl. We no speak on telephone, no write computer about business. I just give her a clue. She understand I tell you before. We discuss education detail when we in Sicilia.”

  For a minute, only the clickety-clack of Zia’s needles can be heard.

  “Even if I did come to Sicily, I’m not staying with Peppina. I’d book myself into a hotel,” I say.

  “No hotel in The Village. Hotel forty-five minute in car.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’d hire a car at the airport and keep it for the whole holiday.”

  “Ah, you modern woman. You do what you want. I tell Peppina only me stay.”

  Zia thought for a bit. Then said:

  “Tart niece Bella and Rosa – the du big bagascie – come back to my house. Blackmail problem.”

  “Zia, I’m sorry. I’m not really interested in their problems. I don’t even want to hear about it.”

  “Yeah, I tell you next week. When you tell me you come to Sicilia.”

  “I can phone you. But just assume it’s a no until then,” I say.

  “No. You no phone. You come back see me.”

  Luckily Humps is out at a business dinner this evening. I don’t want to tell him about going to Sicily straight away – not without sleeping on it for a night.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Thursday 31st August

  At last, a day off. A Zia-free day. I catch up on all my housework in the morning and do some serious food shopping in the afternoon. I vacuum the carpets, polish the furniture, mop the floors, and even wash the windows. Later I read the papers and do some tweeting. Also, I have to answer Susi’s email, maybe I will phone her later instead. My life is certainly busy now.

  Another thing I want to do is to check out the bike-store. Anger sets in again as I unlock the door. I put my head around the door. To my complete surprise, all the walls have been whitewashed. Gone are the perennial cobwebs in the ceiling corners. So, who’s done that, I wonder. I lift the bike-cover a little, to make sure it is actually Humps’s old bike under there. And, yes, it is alright – same as it has been all along. So that’s sorted out. No doubt I will soon hear the whole story about the whitewashing from some good soul. It looks like Richard won’t be getting the bashing I hoped he’d receive.

  After my shopping expedition, I am going into our bui
lding with my bags, when I meet Barbara coming out in the opposite direction.

  “Good afternoon, Barbara. Nice day, isn’t it?”

  “Very nice,” she says.

  “Barbara, I heard from Sarah that you and Richard weren’t well after the barbecue. I was sorry to hear that.”

  “Yes, we were quite poorly. Upset stomachs are terrible.”

  “I know,” I say, “but I’m quite annoyed with Richard. He didn’t take any notice of my warning about leaving the meat in the sun.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, red-faced. “I have had words with Richard and he’s embarrassed about it.”

  “Oh, well the whole business is over? You are well now, I suppose.”

  “Yes, yes, we’re quite well now.” She smiles coldly. “By the way, “Richard’s had the bike-store whitewashed. Have you seen that?”

  “Yes, I have. It’s so fresh and clean now. Look, Barbara, let’s forget about the insulting graffiti incident as well.”

  I can see from the sour expression on her face that she doesn’t like me bringing that up. They can do the deeds but don’t like the consequences.

  “Agreed,” she says. And we shake hands.

  For high and mighty, self-entitled, self-aggrandising, bigoted snobs, they have climbed down a peg or two.

  During dinner I tell Humps about Richard whitewashing the bike-store, about Barbara’s climbdown and about how energised I’ve been – doing an untold amount of housework. Then I get onto the subject of going to Sicily.

  “Well, that’s a bolt from the blue,” he says. “You haven’t been to Sicily for about four decades. What brought that on?”

  “Zia wants to go and insists I go, too. To visit my mother’s grave, she says. I argued against it. Zia said I could stay with her at Peppina’s. That’s definitely out of the question.”

  “Of course, it is. I don’t like the idea of you going on your own. I’ll see if I can come with you. What week would that be?”

  “At the end of September. On the 26th, coming back on Saturday 30th.”

  “Darling, I don’t see why you shouldn’t go. The change will do you good.”

  That was typical of Humps. As long as I am happy so is he.

  “I suppose I could get a few days off work. All that overtime I’ve done. They owe it to me. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “As far as taking care of me is concerned, I think I might just be taking care of you, if you come to Sicily, too.”

  “I’m not staying here on my own. Who’s going to hold my hand when I can’t sleep?” he jokes.

  “Oh, Humps. That would be great. What a surprise! We could go and stay by the sea. In a nice hotel. Far away from The Village. What do you think?”

  “I’d love it,” he says, “you know I’ve always wanted to go and you’ve not been keen.”

  “Well, maybe the time has come. We can drive to The Village when we want to go there.”

  “That sounds splendid,” he says.

  “I’ll tell Zia next time I go.”

  I can’t pretend I don’t have any trepidation about this. I’ve always tried to keep my family at arm’s length. I suppose I have to be positive about it all. Sicily is a beautiful island born of Greek Myth and ventilated by warm African winds. The land of limoncello and granita. Many tourists go there who are not slightly connected to the place. Why can’t we just go there and enjoy this land of my origins? I keep swinging between being positive about it and then imagining horror stories. It could turn out to be a fine mess I’ve got myself into. Is there a chance that Humps and I could be associated with anything untoward? No, of course not. Giulio would be straightened out somehow and would then leave Provvi alone. They knew what they were doing in Sicily. They weren’t some tuppenny, backstreet, east-end, unwary, petty criminals. They were part of an ingrained age-old tradition, razor-sharp, highly-organised.

  “I’ll clear up,” Humps says.

  “Thanks, darling. I need to phone Susi. She emailed me and I haven’t answered.”

  I do care about Susi. She tells me everything she’s been up to. She is an open book about her life. About her chaotic work life. About all the men she’s been sleeping with, and how good or bad they are in bed, accompanying her accounts with all the fine details. We have some grand laughs together. Giggling like schoolgirls. Essentially, she’s been rudderless since her divorce, about forty years ago. The only husbands she’s wanted after that, belong to other women. Their wives can iron their shirts after I’ve crumpled them, she says. And she exploits the men for all they’re worth. She turns the whole concept of married men using single women on it’s head. She’s the single woman wringing out married men and hanging them out to dry. Or so she believes.

  Whenever she is going through a change in her life, she’ll get in touch. As in the recurring times the current ‘husband’ has left her or she’s left him, or if she’s changing her job. I give her no end of advice. None of which she’s ever taken. I’ve come to realise that under the guise of wanting advice, lies the simple need to tell me what she’s doing. She needs to share it. She needs me to tell her she is being hard-done-by. That is her endgame. But, I still offer her advice.

  She adds, how can I say? Some excitement in my life? Different from me. I am boring in comparison. In her professional life, she takes on jobs far too difficult for her, then she gets sacked. She finds jobs that are paid too little and then leaves as soon as she finds a better-paid one. So round and round it goes, every few months or so.

  In her love-life she is totally uninhibited. A woman who goes out there, weaves relationships with men, has a wonderful time, gets hurt, and starts all over again. At times, she gets into new affairs before the old ones have fizzled out: “You’ve got to be forward looking, haven’t you, Mary?” Where she gets all the men from is a mystery to me. “They grow on trees,” she says. With some, she remains friends – occasionally meeting them, when ‘the call from the jungle’ occurs. Or, if she needs money, one or two will oblige. She never seems to have money of her own. Whenever we go out together, I pay. Zia gives her money too, when she goes to her mother and pleads with her. This has been happening for most of her adult life, even as she is approaching the age of sixty. Often some of the men she has been involved with help her find a job. With a few, she’s started up small businesses which have ended up falling flat on their faces. And losing the little money she had.

  Susi eventually answers her phone. She says she has some bad news. She’s lost her job.

  “Oh, no! How awful! Not again,” I say.

  She came to specialise in marketing and sales. And nobody is as good as Susi in marketing herself. Unashamed bull-shitter supremo. It’s surprising how far she’s come without qualifications. She left school to get married and never went back. Essentially, she’s lied her way up. One day I arrived at her home when she’d finished printing her CV. Handing it over to me, she asked if I’d have a quick look-through, check it for typos. “Susi, you don’t have these qualifications – a degree in Media? Honestly, they’ll find out.”

  “Yeah, I know they could find out, Mary. But I get experience for as long as they keep me. Yeah, I learn on the job. I’ve only been chucked out once for lying.”

  “Yes, but word gets around.”

  “London’s big,” she says. “What’s the choice? I look at the job ad, and tell them I’ve got what they are looking for. You’ve got to get an interview. If you don’t, you don’t get a job. I wouldn’t bother sending them my CV if I told the truth. It’s a no-brainer.”

  “But you haven’t even worked for some of these places!” I said, as I scrolled my finger down the list under the heading ‘experience.’”

  “They hardly ever check up,” she said, “and, oh, by the way, I gave an agency your mobile number.”

  “Why?”

  “Sorry, I didn’t ask your permission before, but they suddenly threw the question at me. They want a professional to give them a character reference. Don’t tell them y
ou’re my cousin, will you?”

  Sure enough, they phoned me. That very same day.

  Now some bright and slick 35-year-old, even more silver-tongued than Susi, is replacing her. They asked Susi to collect her things, then they put her at the door, within one hour of telling her she’d been fired. She needn’t work her notice out, they said.

  “From tomorrow, Friday, 1st September 2017, I’ll be without a job. But I have ideas about setting up a little business. Seba’s the one to help me with that. We still see each other every now and then.”

  Sebastian and Susi’s affair lasted a few months. But he comes back on the scene every now and then. He has a house in the country and a small flat in London, which I would describe as his playpen. Like others, he makes out he’s left his wife, has moved out of the family home, and is shacked up in a little flat because the alimony is such that he can’t afford anything bigger – not in London, anyway. As it turns out, he is going back home, and his wife knows nothing about his ever moving out of the family home. But Seba left Susi for his ex-lover, who’d come back on the scene, and back to his playpen; although he swears, he still loves Susi. And because he still loves her, Susi phones him, and he agrees they could start up a little business together.

  Every time Susi meets a new husband, she carries out a survey. She finds out where he lives, gets his home phone number or his wife’s mobile (which Susi finds in his mobile when he’s stupidly distracted for some reason) then Susi phones the wife. Susi pretends she’s from an airline or some other big firm, depending on the husband’s lifestyle, and finds out as much as she can about the family. “The information,” she says, “can come in useful.” Especially when the husband’s lying to her. “Anyway,” I’ve heard her say, “it’s nice to know who you’re sharing a man with. We usually have a lot in common.”

  “Can I treat you to lunch tomorrow, Susi? Come on, let’s get ourselves a nice meal washed down by plenty of good Italian wine.”

  “Where? When?” She jumps at the offer.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Friday 1st September

  “Susi, darling, so sorry about your job,” I say, as soon she arrives at the restaurant.