by Louisa Young
‘I saw it through Riley’s eyes,’ she said. ‘I thought, what if I have to explain it to him? I felt that I was lying to him.’
Tom had been prepared to be angry with her. He had wanted to be – it could be her fault, as an adult, for not warning him, or explaining to him. But she disarmed him with her frankness and the look in her eyes.
‘And have you spoken to Riley about it?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Oh no.’
‘But you should,’ he said. Then stopped. He was unaccustomed to moral ambiguity. ‘Shouldn’t you?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I don’t see that there’s any point. It would upset him, on our behalf.’
‘But—’ he began – and stopped, because there was nothing to say. It wasn’t right, but—
But—
‘Sometimes things just aren’t right, darling,’ she said, and she folded a jumper. I’d better just look after myself, he thought, and then wondered where the thought had come from.
He and Nadine had been, in some way, got. And then they had jumped back, almost, each of them separately, like children caught in the act of some naughtiness, and assumed an innocent expression – who me? Oh, no, I don’t know anything about that. Do you, Nadine? No, Tom, I don’t. Perhaps they hadn’t believed that Jews could really be Fascists. Or that Fascists were somehow not as bad as some people thought. Or that Italian Fascism was really different to National Socialism in Germany.
Suddenly and strongly, Tom didn’t want to go to university. He wanted to go out, to be elsewhere: running, riding a horse, a motorcycle. Flying. Fighting. He wanted to shoot something. He wanted to be clean and fast and strong.
‘I’m going for a swim,’ he said. The green waters of the Serpentine would hold him, solid as glass as he powered through.
*
That first week in Cambridge, strolling into the Porters’ Lodge, trying to feel as if to the manor born, I’m familiar with the streets of Rome and London, Cambridge holds no fears for me, he found a letter waiting for him. The sight of her handwriting did give him a thrill of excitement, and he tore it open crossing the green and grey purity of Great Court, a satchel of books over his shoulder.
Caro Masino,
I have been thinking perhaps it would be best to forget the last hours you were here. What Papà did, and what you said. It seems so odd that I am not sure it happened it all. But you are not here. This much is real. I am so sorry for what Papà did. I don’t know what he thought – well, I do know what he thought. But I don’t know exactly what he thought. I am showing him my anger by not talking to him; he is showing his by not letting me go out. So I have all the time in the world to read a letter from, perhaps, you.
My friend, my brother, whatever you are, sayer of an important thing which perhaps you regret, perhaps you don’t feel is true now you are back in England, in the land of the cold—
Papa wrote to Zia Nadina. I don’t think he told her what he did.
Perhaps you have written to me, and a nice letter from you is caught on an Alp, fluttering in the wind … no letter has arrived here.
It seems a waste of postage not to fill the envelope, but I have nothing else to say until I know what is on your mind.
Write to me!
from Nenna with love
He stopped a moment in the draughty Gothic gateway, holding the flimsy piece of paper with a kind of respect. He liked how delicately yet directly she said what had to be said. He had never met a girl who was at all like her; who was human, and open, like this. But what did that mean – what could it mean? When only two days ago Mussolini’s troops – her hero’s troops – had attacked Abyssinia. The tune of the song sprang up in his head like a mockery: Faccetta nera, bell’abissina … Little black face, beautiful Abyssinian.
He had been laughing with her about those songs …
He was on his way to a tutorial, so he picked his feet up swiftly again as he strode across Great Court. His lecture schedule was full, and a chap on his staircase had said he was to try out for the boat club, but his first port of call was going to be the University Air Squadron … This is a different world …
He knew what he ought to do. He ought to write her a straight honourable letter saying look, Nenna, I’m not a Fascist, you are, in most cases political differences don’t need to make that much difference but in this case, I’m afraid our principles are—
How pompous!
‘Seeing your face all lit up at that rally while that big oaf—’
No.
‘As long as you share your father’s attachment to—’
And then what? It was pretty common knowledge now what was happening to anti-Fascists – you lose your job, your—
The problem wasn’t Nenna. The problem was Italy.
In which case.
The solution was simple! And what a fool he had been not to have thought of it before!
He ran up the steps and through and out again into Nevile’s Court without a glance at the architectural beauty which floored the world, skirted the lawn, slipped under the arcade and into the College Library. At a dim desk among the book stacks he sat down and wrote to her.
Nenna, my love
Listen, I have had the very best idea. Why don’t you come to England to study? You liked it here, didn’t you? You could stay with the family. Of course I would be here in Cambridge but the terms are very short, or – even better, yes, this is it – you could come up here – there’s women’s colleges and language schools – though to be honest you could probably teach in one – earn while you learn! – and teacher training and a hospital – and there are lots of marvellous courses in London too, and you could learn anything you like. You could start after Christmas. Nadine and Riley think it’s a wonderful idea
(He hadn’t told them – he’d only just had the idea – but they would think it a wonderful idea, the moment he gave them a chance to.)
and only a nincompoop would disagree. You, not being a nincompoop, will of course recognise this plan as the best idea anybody ever had, and start putting it into practice. You know what you have to do! I will ask Nadine to send details of colleges, etc.
He raced back out: courts, lawns, Trinity Street, post office, letterbox. Done. He laughed out loud, breathless.
Damn. Late for his tutorial. ‘No running in Great Court, sir,’ smirked a bowler-hatted porter.
It didn’t matter. It was an inspired idea.
Later, he wrote to Riley and Nadine about it. Nadine in particular said Yes! what a wonderful plan, and took on the business of finding out about courses.
*
A second letter came. It seemed Nenna had not received the first:
L’Isola – Ottobre xx
Tommaso caro,
I know Papà can be a capoccia grossa. Is it because of him that you don’t write to me?
He is busy all the time, working down in his swamps and busy with party activities. The Duce came to open another new city. It is amazing the work they are achieving. But if you are angry with Papà, just remember I am not him! There are boys here making eyes at me; I don’t know if I can make eyes back, I don’t know if there is someone I like who has made a claim on me – Masino, listen, if you have made a claim on me, please, repeat it, make sure I have heard correctly. Because it’s not nothing, such a thing. And if you have not, I need to know. Because if you have—
Well.
Marinella sends her love and waves her little hands at you.
She had cried as she wrote that letter. To be stuck in her little room after school every day, the white ceiling and the white floor and her dark bed and outside all the sun and the cries and the people and the evening and the river.
And Aldo swinging about the place, and Mama just rolling her eyes and telling her to have patience, he’ll get bored, he’ll forget …
So she had nothing to do except schoolwork and thinking about Tom.
*
This didn’t change a thing. He d
id not regret the first letter at all. It all lay out before him like a beautiful landscape: she would be here, he would look after her, he would respect her and keep other boys off her, he would not try to seduce her, she could learn to fly too! And they would work hard and they would get married and have a beautiful exciting life together.
‘I am not him!’ He laughed at that. No, you’re not. You can be saved, I can save you.
Her next letter said:
Tommaso,
You are a genius. No idea has ever been better. I have asked Mama, she is going to talk to Papà. This would be so good! Tell me, please, which schools I can write to. I do want to be a teacher I think, Papà says it is a good work for a woman, so he is more likely to agree. Then I can teach English here and Italian there – does anyone in England want to learn Italian? Or I can teach little children – or be a proper professoressa. I am very excited and you are very clever. Thank you!
Your not-nincompoop (I had to look this word up. I like it very much), Nenna
Something about this letter made him so happy that he replied with the extravagance of a telegram:
Dear Non-nincompoop only fair to say when in England no English chaps allowed to make eyes love
When that went winging its way, he felt a great sigh; an expansion and a settling. A decision made. A path ahead, clear and well-lit. He felt happy.
*
Meanwhile, he acquired a motorbike. At first, he tried to talk Riley into talking Peter into paying for it.
‘Earn the money or ask your father,’ said Riley.
Tom, heartened by his new independence as an undergraduate and inviter of women (women! Women? Was Nenna a woman?) from overseas, asked his father. He made Riley go with him, and Riley smiled all the way through the conversation, because this was the first proper conversation Peter and Tom had had since – well perhaps ever.
They met for lunch, the three of them, at a little restaurant in Kensington. Tom realised he had hardly even seen Peter for months. Walking in, he felt for a moment like the small boy, the cross boy, that he used to be – but then – no – he had an overcoat now, and was as tall as his father.
He held out his hand: ‘Hello Father,’ he said. And Peter took it: ‘Hello Tom.’ And each saw what a matching pair they were, how very alike in looks, in manner, in carriage. Tom blinked. He had spent his entire childhood insisting he was not and would never be anything like his father. But his father was sober and clean, his face was in focus, clear.
‘How are you, sir?’ Tom asked, as the chairs were pulled out and napkins snapped.
‘I’m very well,’ Peter said, and gave him a little smile and nod, and something unspoken and very British slipped into place between them. Tom was mystified. Was it manhood, in some way? A silent acknowledgement of adulthood? He glanced at Riley, but Riley was looking at the menu.
Mild embarrassment, small talk and mutual observation covered the soup and the main course. Riley compèred, with chat about Nadine, and mention of the Italian girl who they hoped would come over to study. After the steak (shepherd’s pie for Riley) seemed to be the moment to bring up the motorcycle. Peter raised his pale eyes to Tom’s and said: ‘Tell me why you want it,’ to which Tom responded thus: ‘I will need it for taking Nenna around, and also getting out to Duxford, and I’ll need to get out to Duxford because I’m an Officer Cadet now, and I am to learn to fly, and if I can’t learn to fly I’m not staying at university. I could easily go to the bad in the London fleshpots, that would be all right for me but I don’t suppose any of you would care for that, but I think the best thing for me would be adventure. Travel, and so on. Souks and temples – from above, of course – the sky and the stars. I might volunteer with Miss Earhart, or fly the mail from Florida down to Rio. And then if there is a war I can come back and die heroically for the RAF. What do you think? Would that do?’
His head was just a little bit cocked; he felt defiant and certain, full of his own plans.
Peter blinked at him. ‘The RAF won’t let you die heroically without a degree,’ he said, not in the least bit truthfully. ‘I’d stick with the sciences if I were you.’
‘And the motorbike?’
Peter looked a little puzzled, and said: ‘Well of course.’ Then, as if it were an afterthought, ‘Just don’t crash it.’ And he gave his son a sudden, rare and tender smile, which Tom blinked at, before leaning forward across the table, to the peril of the salt and pepper, to shake his father’s hand and say, ‘Thank you, sir.’ Peter’s other hand rose, as if to touch his son’s arm – but then he stopped and said, without looking at Tom, ‘You can come and talk to me any time, you know. You don’t have to need something. You don’t even have to bring Riley.’
Tom sort of half raised his eyebrows, then dropped them again, as if they had surprised him.
‘Thank you, sir,’ he said again, and sat down.
We don’t seem to be on bad terms, he thought. Everything seems possible!
He celebrated the feeling by collecting Kitty from school. She came out on her own among groups of laughing, self-aware girls, and the droopy unmoving angle of her head revealed her loneliness among them, her need to be wanted, and the desire to be left alone that had grown up around that, trying and failing to preserve some dignity. When Tom, elegant with his collar up, hailed her from across the road, every straw-boatered hairclipped head turned. He saw it, and called her ‘darling’ loudly, bestowing his handsome smile on all around, and resolving to pay a bit of attention to her, she looked terrible. ‘Today, my dearest,’ he said, loud enough to carry, ‘You are going to come and help me choose a motorbike’ – and the ripples swelled into waves of wonder and whispering – Kitty! Little fatty Kitty Locke!
Tomorrow I’ll bring her into school on the bike before I go back to Cambridge, he thought.
Of course she wasn’t really going to help choose. He was getting a BSA Empire Star – the one with the removable electric headlight on a cable so you could check for faults in the dark. ‘Though it has no faults,’ he said, gesturing, at the motorcycle showroom on the King’s Road, ‘because it’s the Masterpiece of the Industry. Look, it says so here …’
He did let her choose the colour of his extra crash helmet. ‘But I’ll tell you a secret. It’s really for Nenna. She’s going to come and live in England. She’s going to be my girl!’
‘Really?’ Kitty said. ‘That’s wonderful.’ And though it came out wistful, she seemed to mean it, which stopped him for a moment, and made him look at her.
‘You happy about that?’ he said. Extraordinary that he should be asking her opinion, really, he thought, but—
‘I am!’ she said, and she smiled a real big glowing smile, with her blue eyes full of sweetness, and Tom gave her a sort of hug, and found he was ruffling the hair on her head.
‘Tom,’ she blurted. ‘Some girls at school said I was anti-Semite. They took my diary from my locker and read it and I’d written that I was glad Deborah Schwarz couldn’t come on the school trip because it was Passover and she’s Jewish so she couldn’t come, but I wasn’t an anti-Semitic, I just don’t like her because she was trying to get Eleanor Hardwick off me and Eleanor’s pretty much my only friend … if you can call her a friend … and nobody else likes her very much except for me, and I don’t think Deborah would like her for very long either, so I was glad she couldn’t come, so I said I can’t be anti-Semite, my mother is Jewish and they said well then why don’t you go to Jewish Prayers then, instead of ordinary prayers like everyone else, and I didn’t know what to say except tell them Nadine’s not my real mother but I wasn’t going to tell them that; they called Susan Mack Floppy-Doppy Baby and she wasn’t even really adopted—’
‘Would you like me to kill them?’ he said. ‘With my bare hands? I could, if it would help?’
She smiled.
‘Otherwise, it might be more convenient, you know, if you just – when they start talking like that – imagine them on the lav, you know, having a bit of troubl
e, straining … Then you’ll laugh, and that’ll spook them and they’ll run away.’
She smiled some more, and looked down. Pleased.
He gave her a sort of hug, and said: ‘Good oh! Now come on, Titch, put this on,’ and he helped to strap her into it, her yellow hair fluffing and her hairclip needing to be removed. He could feel Kitty’s joy all the way back to Bayswater, through the leather of his new jacket and the howl of the engine. How little it takes to make her happy, he thought. I shall be nicer to her.
*
All of which made Nadine’s news all the harder. She had had a letter from Aldo. Absolutely not, he said. Nenna was too young, she was needed at home, it was out of the question, an absurd idea. What father could allow it – a daughter that age, going to another country, living away from home? He was amazed Nadine would even suggest such a thing. No further discussion. Absolutely not.
Nenna’s letters were full of fury; her father’s injustice, her mother’s spinelessness, Vittorio’s passivity in his sympathetic agreement that their parents were outrageous; Stefano saying ‘well I never wanted you to go anyway’. Tom’s were full of Nadine’s advice: be patient, this can happen later. Time will pass. This wasn’t what he felt though. What he felt was pure incomprehension. It was such a good idea! Why would Aldo forbid it?
Tom didn’t write to Aldo to seek to persuade him. He still felt the look in Aldo’s eye before the second punch. The look which knew exactly what Tom wanted. Tom suspected – knew, really – that he, Tom, was the reason why Nenna was not permitted to come.
He closed his eyes at the thought, and decided to calm it all down. Cool off. Wait.
Trinity College, November
My dear noncompoop,
So we are not allowed to start our adventure yet. Never mind. Every day we get older and nearer to being able to do exactly what we want. Pacify your old dad, and let’s see how it goes. It all seems to have got rather heated so let’s keep our heads down …
Masino,
The reply came soon. Papà really has gone off you. I mentioned that we’d probably see you in the summer, and he blew his top. Partly I want to blow my top right back at him but why bother? He will always shout louder than me. But today has been a happy day – the Giornata della Fede. I went with Mama and Zia Seta to the Temple where she gave up her gold wedding ring, and was given in exchange a band of patriotic steel. Then we went up to the Vittoriale, to the altar of the Unknown Warrior. It was so beautiful! Thousands of women, with choirs, and braziers, and the Archbishop of the Armed Forces leading the ceremony. It was as if everyone was marrying the Duce, all of them – Mama, all the aunties, Christian and Jewish, old widows and young brides marrying the Duce and the army, declaring their faith and giving their wedding rings. And all the husbands looking on and approving. Papà wasn’t there though, he was at the inauguration of Pontinia, you remember, the fourth new city of the Agro Pontino. The Duce made a speech: ‘We inaugurate Pontinia today on the Day of Faith – the day on which all the fruitful mothers of Italy give, on the Altar of the Fatherland or other monuments to the fallen, their wedding rings – but a day also of the faith of the Italian people in their rights, a day of certain and undefeatable faith in the destiny of the Fatherland.’ They were both so happy when they came home, so proud and joyful to be part of something so powerful and productive. We are so lucky to have our Duce.
