The Gulf Between

by Maxine Alterio

  Tears streamed down my face. ‘Ilaria’s gone. Ben’s lost to me. Matteo’s headed in the same direction. Francesca’s on her best behaviour at school, but only so she can get a parrot.’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do for Ilaria,’ Oliver said, ‘and it may be too late for you and Ben, but don’t give up on Matteo. He’s young, intelligent and resourceful. And you and Francesca are absolutely safe with me.’

  ‘I want Matteo here, too.’

  ‘He has his father in the meantime. The photo?’ he repeated.

  I pointed to a compendium I’d purchased at the village post office. Oliver flicked through the pages until he found the Positano snap, all of us laughing. ‘The love you have for each other is obvious,’ he said. He slipped the article in behind it, closed the album and put it on top of an ottoman. ‘Ernesto may have changed the number without Ben’s knowledge.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain why Ben hasn’t phoned me. He’d guess I would be here with you.’

  Oliver waited a few days and rang the telephone exchange again. There were new private listings for the villa and Rosa and Carlo’s cottage. Another job to give to the investigator.

  At Oliver’s urging, I fronted up to my initial appointment with Dr Reysel, a tall, thin man with nugget-brown hair streaked with silver. I sensed no interest in bodily matters, only the workings of the mind, which indicated that he wasn’t a fully functioning person either.

  In this session we tackled my erratic sleep patterns and uncontrollable bouts of weeping, and came up with a strategy for the former. If I didn’t drift off within thirty minutes of retiring, I was to turn on the light and read a chapter of a non-riveting book; if that didn’t work, I would go downstairs and make a milky drink. A bath before bedtime was mentioned as well. ‘A bored brain settles more readily than an active one,’ Reysel said, pushing the box of Kleenex tissues on a low table closer to me. He also wrote a prescription for amitriptyline, an antidepressant. Over the years I’ve swallowed loads of these little blue pills.

  ‘Tell me what you’re thinking about prior to a crying binge.’

  Interesting choice of words, I thought: ‘binge’ implied a loss of control. Exactly how I felt. When I failed to answer, he said, ‘Think, Mrs Moretti, think.’

  Details came out in dribs and drabs.

  At the second session he made a suggestion. ‘Write to your son. Remind him that you love him.’

  We also explored the likely implications for me if Matteo didn’t reply. ‘I have nothing to lose and much to gain. I could post my letters to Roberto Ruggiero,’ I said, having explained the connection, ‘and Matteo could collect them from him.’

  ‘Is the man trustworthy?’ Dr Reysel asked, flicking a hair off the lapel of his tailored jacket. It settled on the polo jumper he wore underneath.

  ‘He never gave me reason to think otherwise,’ I said.

  ‘And is the post reliable?’

  ‘Catalogues came. Roberto showed them to us.’ I brushed my fringe to the side. It needed cutting. ‘I don’t want to cause him trouble,’ I said, thinking of Ilaria.

  Dr Reysel pulled on the cuff of his shirt, edged it over the bony protuberance of his wrist and steered me towards practicalities. ‘Talk me through what you’ll say to Ruggiero.’

  I left the consulting rooms with a plan.

  After obtaining Roberto’s number through the international directory, I put a call through to his shop at closing time, thinking there’d be less chance of interruptions. I had cobbled together an explanation about why I’d failed to say a proper goodbye to him.

  An unfamiliar male voice answered in Neapolitan, catching me unaware. I stuttered in Italian, ‘Can I please talk to Signor Ruggiero?’

  ‘I’ve taken over the premises. Turned it into a thriving leather-goods enterprise. You need a quality handbag for a wedding, a funeral? I have all kinds. You want a knockdown price?’

  I ignored his sales pitch. ‘Do you know where the previous owner went?’

  ‘I heard he headed north to live with a sister.’

  Roberto had never mentioned a relative. ‘Did he leave a forwarding address?’

  ‘Not with me,’ said the man, and hung up.

  Left with no alternative, I addressed my letters to Matteo to his school. Oliver also sent a couple after I insisted an envelope addressed in a man’s handwriting might have more chance of reaching him. I never knew if Matteo received any of them. But for weeks after slipping one of mine into the post-box on the corner I lived for Oliver’s daily return from the postal address we had used in the letters — an empty shop owned by his department as an anonymous meeting place, or for when someone needed a false address to cover their traces.

  On impulse, during a rare supper without Francesca railing against some injustice or another — she was eating in the television room while watching a David Attenborough wildlife programme — I flagged an idea to Oliver. ‘Would you consider intercepting Matteo at his school? See if he’d listen to you?’

  Oliver dabbed his lips with a napkin. ‘I’ve been thinking along the same lines. A week from today, I’m meeting with diplomats in Rome. There’s a twenty-four-hour gap before I head to Milan, long enough for me to get to Naples and back. Better if I travel by car. Air terminals and stations have too many ears and eyes.’

  I thought of the pipe-smoker and the puzzling wink he had given me at Fiumicino.

  The date Oliver mentioned fell before my third session with Dr Reysel, so I was unable to talk it over with him. Not that it mattered. I trusted Oliver: taking a lover hadn’t changed his reliability, only his availability.

  ‘Please go alone,’ I said, wanting him to focus solely on extricating Matteo.

  I couldn’t hide my disappointment when Oliver returned without my son. He bore my anger and accusations of not trying hard enough to bring Mattie home with more compassion than I deserved. Eventually I ran out of steam and said, ‘Tell me exactly what took place.’ At which point Oliver led me into the snug and shut the door. We sat opposite each other, rigid from the strain. ‘Well?’ I said.

  ‘I hired a car in Rome and headed south,’ he replied leadenly. ‘When I reached Naples I parked alongside the sports grounds at Matteo’s school. As you anticipated, there was football practice after the formal lessons. Mattie took his position on the wing. I couldn’t believe how he’d grown since I last saw him. He’s a head taller than his teammates. Takes after Wiggin in that respect.’

  ‘Get on with what happened, Oliver.’ I wanted the facts, not his impressions.

  Oliver crossed his legs and smoothed his trousers about the knees. ‘The coach worked on interceptions. He had the team run up and down the field. I could’ve wound down the window of the car and overheard what Mattie was saying to the other players. He was that close.’

  ‘Did you speak to him?’

  ‘Later, after the final whistle went.’ He hesitated as if it pained him to recall what had transpired. ‘The coach yelled to the boys to go to the clubhouse. Rather than follow them, Matteo dribbled the ball to the net closest to me and practised kicking it in from different angles. He didn’t appear to be in a hurry to leave the grounds. Taking the chance that neither Carlo nor Ernesto were about to show up, I left the car and waylaid him with the message you wrote to him.’

  In it, I had begged Mattie to leave with Oliver and come home to me. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘At first he pretended not to recognise me. I reassured him that I was indeed his godfather. Gave my word that I could have him back with you and his sister in a matter of hours. I promised he could decide what to do about his papa at a later date.’

  ‘Do you think he believed you? Did he want to come home?’

  ‘I’m not sure. He said someone was waiting for him and took off.’

  52

  Devastated, I dispatched a flurry of letters to Matteo, sending most care of Alessia’s priest and her doctor. I addressed one to Rosa at the cottage, asking for forgiveness for drugging her,
saying I didn’t think I had a choice. Others went to Alphonse’s home. I addressed a couple to Sergio’s house in Positano, thinking Matteo might go there. The rest I sent to the villa and to post offices throughout the city, reasoning it would be impossible for Ernesto to intercept every single one.

  On my third attempt to phone Matteo at school, the woman in the office hung up as soon as I spoke. Thereafter I phoned the kiosk where I had called Oliver from in those fraught months before I left, on the slim chance that Matteo might pass at that precise moment and pick up the receiver. All I netted were strangers. Several agreed to relay messages in exchange for money, which I duly dispatched. None of these transactions came to anything. Reluctantly I had to accept that Matteo and Ben wanted nothing more to do with me. Nevertheless, I carried on writing, hoping for a miracle.

  Three months after arriving home with Francesca, my resolve dipped. Oliver was also miserable, because his lover had replaced him with a younger squeeze. We were in the snug commiserating. Oliver seemed distracted. I wondered if something other than a disastrous love life and Matteo’s absence troubled him.

  ‘Say when, Julia,’ he said, waving the brandy decanter at me.

  I was in the mood to get sloshed, but because I was making progress with Dr Reysel I was chary of drinking to block out emotional pain. ‘Not for me, thanks. I’ll stick to hot chocolate.’

  We rambled on until midnight, when we agreed that if we were to shake off our misfortunes we had to make significant changes. What they might be was up for grabs.

  Forty hours later I was in the kitchen peeling potatoes for supper when Oliver came in, waving three air-tickets. ‘Fancy an extended holiday in New Zealand?’

  At first I thought he had arranged for Matteo to meet us there. I leaned against the bench. ‘Really?’

  He smoothed his hair. ‘A break will do us good.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve hit a sticky patch.’

  ‘At work?’

  ‘We fly out tonight. It’ll be time to pick up Francesca soon. Pack a case for you and her. Use a couple of mine, You’ll find them in the closet. We’ll go to the airport straight from her school.’

  ‘Why the rush?’ By now I sensed that the urgency had nothing to do with my son. ‘Can’t we wait until the holidays? What about Frannie’s new cat?’

  ‘The daily will care for it. Trust me,’ said Oliver. ‘Everything’s under control.’

  I knew better. He wouldn’t look at me. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘All right, I had the sod arrested for soliciting.’

  ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘He deserves what’s in store for him. The rotter’s spitting out names and places in exchange for a lighter sentence. I need to drop out of sight until the heat comes off.’

  ‘Could you be arrested?’

  ‘Not if I’m on the other side of the world.’

  We boarded the plane that was to take us on the first leg of a frightful distance fraught with flight changes and delays, fuelling stops, terrible food and turbulence. I thought we’d never arrive. Francesca sat in a window seat, virtually ignoring me. Oliver was lost in his own thoughts. I had a book to read but it didn’t hold my attention. At Christchurch we transferred to a DC-3 and travelled to Queenstown via Mount Cook.

  On our descent I marvelled at the snow-capped mountains, blue lake and vibrant orange, red and gold-leafed trees which would lose their leaves in a month or two, a reminder of the seasons in nature as well as in life. This was my autumn.

  The house Oliver rented had stunning views, which were good for the soul. Under protest Francesca attended the local state school. At weekends she caught black skinks with grey, green and yellowish blotches, patterns that provided excellent camouflage amid the lichen-covered schist terrain. She housed them in an aquarium she sweet-talked Oliver into buying, and gave them Italian nicknames, which I found unsettling. Far more worrying, however, was Oliver’s belief that his line of work would keep him out of reach of the law. Not that I wanted to see him punished for his sexual preference, far from it, although he had, out of spite, thrown a man to the baying hounds. Under Dr Reysel’s guidance I had come to realise that every one of us is capable of causing havoc if our secrets are about to be exposed or we feel threatened.

  If Oliver wasn’t on the phone, he was making lists. There were occasions when I doubted whether he, or anyone else, including me, ever revealed who we really were to others, even when undergoing psychoanalysis. I was learning to accept that everyone, not just Napoletani, wore masks, play-acted and changed allegiances. The sure-fire certainty I’d had as a young woman shifted to uncertainty — a more realistic state, although rarely comfortable.

  In this frame of mind I decided to gain a qualification in a practical profession when we returned to London, something that would enable me to provide a service to others. If I succeeded, I might not consider my life a complete failure.

  While Oliver and I were holed up in Queenstown, the investigator obtained the new unlisted number for Il Casino di Caccia. I rang with anxious anticipation. Rosa answered. I apologised in Italian for what I had done to her, blaming my behaviour on worry, exhaustion, sadness and drink. Once I had that off my chest, I asked after Matteo and Ben.

  She said, ‘I look after them very good.’

  ‘Did you get my letter?’

  ‘I cannot read so I burn it before the men they see.’

  Of course she was illiterate. Why hadn’t I twigged? ‘Which men?’ I asked, wanting to know if she meant Carlo and Ernesto, or Ben and Ernesto.

  The line went dead. I pictured my brother-in-law’s burly finger cutting us off.

  I waited twenty-four hours before phoning again. This time I got another disconnected beep. Likewise when I dialled the number Oliver had passed on to me for the cottage. ‘Please ask your investigator to ferret out the next replacements,’ I asked but he was neck-deep in papers sent via registered mail service.

  ‘My mess has to take priority if we want to return home,’ he said. ‘A homo-hunt’s in full swing now that such a chap has been implicated in the Profumo Affair.’

  Every morning, like most adults living in Commonwealth countries, I pored over salacious newspaper accounts about a political scandal unfolding in London involving John Profumo, the British War Minister, a Russian spy, a couple of good-time girls and their homosexual friend Stephen Ward, an osteopath who moved in influential circles. ‘Did you know the situation was about to blow up when we left?’

  ‘I’d heard rumours of sexual shenanigans happening at parties hosted by Bill and Bronwen Astor at the Cliveden Estate as early as ’61. It’s not safe to be homosexual under normal circumstances, let alone in this Cold War. God knows where the muckraking will end. Heads are bound to roll, starting at the top.’

  ‘I read yesterday that a reporter has hunted down one of the girls in Spain. Apparently she’s agreed to sell her story.’

  ‘She won’t have a clue what she’s in for. They’ll tear her to shreds.’

  ‘Just as well you removed yourself from the fray.’ It wasn’t only me who felt safer in New Zealand.

  It took almost a year for Oliver to have his name expunged from police files. As a result of the greater debacle and associated trial, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan stepped down, Profumo resigned, Ward committed suicide, and the lives of two vilified girls changed forever. By this stage I was ambivalent about leaving Queenstown, since it was providing me with the peace and anonymity I needed. No one in Italy would find out that Francesca and I were there. We were settled and secure. And I had calmed down enough to plan ahead, to feel eager to study for a qualification and find out what I was capable of achieving. But Oliver couldn’t wait to leave. ‘My career depends on it,’ he said, ‘and for appearances’ sake it’ll help if you’re by my side.’

  As his beard, I thought, recalling the comment Ben had made to me years before. ‘What about the young man? What’s happened to him?’

  O
liver raised an eyebrow. ‘He’s a working john. Been before the courts umpteen times. He knew what to expect.’

  ‘From the courts maybe, but not from you, Oliver.’

  ‘He shagged and blabbed his way into my world. He got what he deserved.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘On good days I do.’

  ‘And on the bad?’

  ‘I picture the mess on the bathroom floor if I were to slash my throat.’

  Francesca was outraged at having to leave her skinks. I didn’t blame her. For one so young she’d had a great deal to contend with. She refused to set them free to fend for themselves in their natural habitat. ‘They’ve probably forgotten how to hunt for food,’ she said. As a last resort I talked to her teacher, who agreed to keep the lizards at school and let Francesca’s classmates take turns caring for them at their homes over the holidays. Understandably I was given the silent treatment as we left the school to go to the airport.

  On our ascent I gazed out the window of the plane at the landscape that had helped to heal me. ‘I’ll be back,’ I whispered.

  After all the disruption, on her thirteenth birthday Francesca demanded after the summer break to become a live-in boarder at her old school. Our family solicitor released extra money from the trust fund to pay for the fees. I felt forlorn and regretful at losing both children, but also relieved that she would be one step further away from Ernesto. And it was good for me to let go of her a little, rather than increase my hold, which was my first response in being back in London, so much closer to Italy.

  Sessions with Dr Reysel after we arrived home enabled me to develop the wisdom to reach this perspective. In Queenstown, at his suggestion, I had recorded my thoughts and feelings in a journal and once a month reread the entries, a reflective process which revealed unhealthy behaviour patterns that I worked on to change.

  I phoned Clinty, who, surprised to hear I was in Dulwich without Ben and Matteo, invited me for coffee. I learned from her that Diann was on a tour of the French Riviera before returning to New Zealand to set up her own clothing shop in Dunedin. ‘She’ll do well,’ Clinty said, ‘especially if she creates wacky window dressings. Jasper has designed these panels that let me pin clothes on them flat. If the money pours in, we’ll open a second shop.’