‘And I am Ross and Elena’s daughter.’

  He didn’t look back at me. Refused to. I took in the firm set of his jaw, his mouth rigid, unyielding. I was standing so close I could have reached out and slapped him, yet I remained motionless, suddenly knowing I was the stronger one, for I felt no hate.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Nonna Gia emerge from under a portico arch. She stood clutching her apron, flanked by her rosemary and chilli bushes, as she watched on, a silent, protective sentinel. My hand went to the cornicello at my throat. I could see now that Jack’s view from the verandah went out over the top of Nonna’s lowset brick house with its venetian blinds covering the front windows. It reached far past the familiar rooftops and antennas and all the way to the distant ranges undulating in mauve and blue on the horizon.

  The wind picked up. Dianne or Tim would likely be there soon to check on Jack and help him with his nightly routine, especially with the storm close. There was nothing else I could say. I turned to go. Jack grabbed my hand. His grip startled me, surprisingly firm for someone frail-looking. I thought I saw a tear in his eye, just one, as if it escaped before the usual control won. Or maybe he just had a watery eye. His lips fought to move but couldn’t form the words. Perhaps the expression on his face said he was sorry, maybe not, but for a moment he held my hand in his, strong and warm. It was the closest I’d come to my father.

  La Luna

  Nonna twisted zippuli dough around either a sun-dried tomato or an anchovy, hiding them inside and frying the pieces until crispy. I hated anchovies so picking a zippulo from the Christmas Eve platter that night would be a lucky, or unlucky, dip. At least they weren’t the sugared ones that Mum had once made to comfort herself. Had she told Nonna about that, I wondered. My eyes slid to Nonna’s profile. Hoop earring drooping in its stretched lobe. Strong nose. Age spots along her hairline. She hadn’t put on a Dean Martin record since she’d played me the song linked to Keith. I didn’t know why. But no matter how close we were or what we’d shared, I couldn’t know all her intricacies, nor her mine. There were always those little parts of us kept hidden.

  My gaze moved around the kitchen. ‘There’s a lot of food here, Nonna.’

  ‘Boh, it’s Christmas Eve!’

  She always cooked thirteen dishes for it. Something to do with Jesus and the apostles, or Calabria, I’d forgotten. The number thirteen lucky as long as you didn’t set the table for thirteen, like the Last Supper. Always that loophole. But there seemed even more food that year, as if Nonna was appeasing the gods with an extra saucepan of baccalà alla Calabrese, its fish smell competing with an oven dish of lasagne con melanzane, eggplant only as, like on Good Friday, no meat was allowed. Chillies waited on the board too, tender throats lined up for Nonna’s angry spaghetti, the dough of which was resting. And all this for only seven of us.

  Just like every other Christmas Eve, Nonna expected Frank, Connie and the kids to join us for dinner and afterwards we would all go to midnight Mass together. But since it had all come out about Mum and Ross – and me – midnight Mass would be the first time we’d come face-to-face with Nonna’s Italian friends who’d endured the same hostility from Jack Armstrong. And who knew how they’d act towards us. My eyes went to the dried chillies Nonna kept hanging by the back door to repel the malocchio.

  There was a clunk from the hallway as Mum hung up the telephone after talking to Connie again. She wandered out to us in the kitchen. ‘Well, what talk the Stanthorpe bush telegraph didn’t take care of, the Italian grapevine has. Only took two days.’

  Neither Nonna nor I said anything but it felt odd that people I didn’t even know were talking about us. I guess those who’d lived in the town long enough knew of Ross Armstrong’s death and the long-held animosity between our two families, and likely mulled over the unexpected turn entwining us all. Mum hadn’t left the house since the talk started spreading.

  She too took in all the food on the table and benchtops and folded her arms. ‘I don’t think I’m going to Mass this year.’

  ‘Elena, we got to go to Mass. It’s Christmas Eve.’ Nonna kept shaping more dough into zippuli. ‘You don’t have to hide in the house. And we’ll hold up our heads.’

  ‘Ma, I’m almost forty, I can decide to stay home if I don’t want to see anyone.’

  I guessed Nonna might be thinking of Edie. Her lips went thin and I sensed another impending argument in the same way the air stills before a storm.

  ‘I think I might go for a walk.’

  ‘Oh, Sof, you don’t have to.’

  I smiled at Mum. ‘It’s okay. Really.’

  They were already at it again in a rush of hisses when I’d grabbed my bag and was slipping out the front door. In a way, I could understand how they each wanted to be just then. Nonna Gia would insist on going up to the shops as usual, clenched by the corset-girdle, handbag over her arm, a look on her face that dared anyone to say a stray word to her, while Mum pretty much wanted to hide out in the house and talk on the phone to Connie. I mostly felt a bit adrift and caught in between, still getting used to knowing who my father was.

  From the portico, I saw Jack wasn’t on his verandah. Maybe the Dinnings had taken him to be with them at the pub for Christmas. There’d been no more interaction between our families since Jack had grasped my hand a couple of days before and I guess the Dinnings didn’t even know about that. It simmered strange and raw and unsettled between us all. Nonna kept telling me that letting it rest for a time would help. She was likely right, but it was hard.

  I noticed the Piccante Calabrese bushes blooming in promise of a new crop. So often I walked by without really seeing them. Among the tiny flowers remained one of the chillies that had ripened early that summer. I felt the smooth curve of its heart shape. To think, it held seeds like Great-great-nonna had wrapped in a paper bud for her granddaughter, my nonna, to open on the other side of the world. I touched the cornicello at my neck, realising she’d touched it too. Did it protect me or just give the belief it did so that I’d feel braver? It and the seeds were so small they could easily be lost.

  Up on the main street, a couple of older women chatting outside the butchery turned to stare at me but most people went about their business. In the newsagent I bought a chocolate, but a smaller one, the gold foil circle of a coconut rough that fit in my palm. That wasn’t to say I wouldn’t buy two chocolates next time, but it was a start. Among the chewing gums I saw Arrowmint and almost picked one up, but couldn’t. Not yet. Mum might have been perceptive about the chocolates but she’d let me down by not telling me about my father for so long. It was hard to forgive her that. Even if I was coming to see that we all had our limitations and that not talking about Ross was hers.

  The shortest way to the train station was past the hotel. I was almost about to walk an extra block to avoid it but then I didn’t want to be like Mum and hide, or to assert Nonna’s boldness, so I went the usual way but over on the other side of the road so it didn’t seem like I was deliberately trying to see the Dinnings. I put the chocolate in my bag with my Walkman and writing paper. Mel was overdue a letter and I needed to write it without Mum seeing. I had to tell Mel the boy I’d told her about was no more, especially in case she mentioned something about it around Mum once I was back in Brisbane.

  ‘Sofie? Hey, Sof!’ Tim was out the back near the chooks.

  I wavered for just a moment before I crossed the road to him. He sat in the yard on an old keg, his sketchbook in hand, which surprised me. Perhaps he wasn’t going to worry as much about his dad belittling his drawing any more. I leant on the gate but didn’t come in.

  ‘How you been going?’ he asked.

  I shrugged. ‘Oh, you know.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He regarded me a bit longer, some of that old look in his eyes like when we’d fallen for each other, but then he glanced away and it was gone.

  ‘Are you drawing?’ I didn’t know what else to say.

  He held up the sketchbook to show me the chooks he’d drawn. ‘Wish they’d keep still.’

  We both sort of laughed and I nodded. ‘They look good. Especially the speckled one.’

  I felt bad for ripping up his other drawings, even if I hadn’t meant it against him, and I would never tell him, not wanting to hurt him. Each of us went quiet. It was actually soothing watching the chooks as they scuffed and dust-bathed. Their gentle tuts and murmurs. Most were toffee brown or white, a few speckled black and white with bright red combs.

  ‘Tim, when you told me your granddad was in the war, I guess you meant your dad’s father, did you?’ I had to ask though I knew the answer, but it was what had helped make me think the old man was Keith. I knew Jack hadn’t been in the war.

  ‘Yeah, my other pop lives up at Allora.’ Tim looked uncomfortable and kept drawing.

  Again we were silent and I wondered how much he knew about Jack. I shifted a little.

  ‘You heading to the station?’ He saw me nod. ‘Want some company?’

  ‘Oh. Probably better not.’ I deliberated telling him about Jack grabbing my hand.

  ‘Sofie …’ Again, our eyes met. ‘It will be better. In time. I reckon.’

  Who’d have thought he’d sound the same as Nonna in some respects. But just then it all felt so up in the air as to what might happen. It was like the initial fluster of finding out had worn off and everyone was treading water while they worked out how they truly felt.

  ‘See you later then,’ I said, and he smiled, but who knew if we really would.

  So, in the end, it was just a holiday fling with the spunk, I wrote to Mel, keeping it breezy and never using Tim’s name. He’s gone back home to Sydney so that’s that. I don’t expect to see him again. I didn’t tell her about my father or his family, not fully sure how I felt about it yet. Tentative about what Mel might say, considering the way she often said wog to me, like it meant nothing, a little joke. When really it made me feel I was somehow lesser than her and others at school, and in a way the word hurt more because already I was different in not having a dad around. Of course, Mel didn’t know what it was like to have an Italian migrant background and be called a wog, or how it felt not having a father, but still.

  There was space left on the page for just a line or two. I hesitated, looking from the platform to the tracks. Then I wrote, when you said you thought of me cause your Dad picked some wog movie, I’m sure you didn’t mean anything by it, but like, what’s the deal with that? I mean, it’s kind of a crappy thing to say. Or didn’t you realise how that might sound to me? Mel would probably put it back on me by saying she was just joking and that I needed to lighten up. Maybe I was too sensitive regarding what was different about me, but if I didn’t say anything it was as if it was okay and for me it wasn’t.

  I folded the letter and got out my Walkman, rewinding the tape to ‘Sweet and Sour’, my favourite song from the TV show I’d watched a few months before. Sitting backwards on the bench, I leant with my hands on the backrest, coconut chocolate sweet in my mouth. Stanthorpe’s red and grey rooftops peeked among trees. My gaze drifted to the post office clocktower, the brick chimneys of the hotel, far off to where the farm was and beyond to the hazy mountain line that gently rose and fell. A dry breeze riffled my curls. The song ended. I thought of my father. Soft quiet stretched out.

  ‘Buon Natale!’ Frank carried in a mammoth tuna casserole. ‘Where do you want the tonno?’

  ‘On the table,’ cried Nonna Gia, kissing Lena and then Sam, who squirmed as usual.

  ‘Here’s your panettone.’ Connie handed Nonna a box that had a picture of the sweet, buttery Italian Christmas bread, tall like a top hat and studded with dried fruit and citrus peel that was inside.

  Frank winked and tousled my hair. ‘Hey, patatina.’ He hadn’t called me little potato since I was about ten and hated it. I couldn’t help laughing a little and gave him a hug back.

  The seven of us crowded around the kitchen table set with the best china and cutlery.

  Then the front doorbell rang.

  ‘Who could that be?’ Nonna glanced at the clock.

  Frank looked at Mum. ‘We’re not expecting anyone else, are we?’

  She shook her head, looking slightly uneasy as Nonna Gia went to see.

  ‘Serena! Pino!’ came Nonna’s cry. ‘Come in!’

  Serena emerged from the hallway carrying a tortiera di carciofi, a savoury artichoke cake. ‘We decided we couldn’t let you have Christmas Eve without us this year,’ she smiled, putting the dish on the table so she could give Mum and then me special kisses and hugs before all the others.

  ‘Il mondo è bello perché vario,’ she murmured in my ear. The world is beautiful because it’s varied.

  My breath drew in hard. Hugging her back, I smelt on her the 4711 perfume she gave me in a tiny bottle each birthday and guessed I’d still be getting another bottle next year. Maybe Zia Serena had said the same words to Mum too for I saw her wiping grateful tears.

  ‘Here’s your panettone.’ Pino handed the box to Mum while he also juggled bottles of wine and lemonade that Frank leapt forward to help him with.

  ‘Sofia, get out more plates,’ commanded Nonna, scurrying off as the doorbell rang again and then crying out, ‘Josie! Alfio! And all the family too. My goodness. Come in!’

  They all traipsed down the hallway carrying dishes smelling of swordfish and a melanzane parmigiana as well as a torta reggina, fruit cake and Alfio’s homemade wines.

  ‘We thought this year we’d come and see you lot for Christmas Eve …’ Josie was saying and gave a happy shout as she saw Serena and Pino had had the same idea.

  Josie too sought out Mum and me first to give us tight hugs and extra kisses.

  ‘A panettone for you all.’ Vince passed me the box and I put it over on the kitchen bench beside the other two.

  Everyone crammed inside tramping over the shag pile carpet and Lena whispered to me, ‘I can’t believe Nonna hasn’t yelled at everyone to take their shoes off.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, almost laughing, and in my relief and gladness gave her a swift hug that made her look surprised but happy.

  ‘Ma, are those trestle tables and old bench seats still out in the garage?’ bellowed Frank. ‘I think we’d better set up outside.’

  ‘Yes, and, Elena, there are some lanterns out there too. We need more plates!’

  ‘Anybody here?’ came a call from outside the back door before Frank even opened it.

  ‘Mamma!’ Connie cried. Her family had also turned up unexpectedly, her mother under the weight of her Sicilian Christmas rice dish, her brother with a slab of beer on his shoulder.

  ‘We decided we’d share Christmas Eve with you lot this year. Gia, here’s a panettone!’

  Close to forty of us squashed along bench seats at the trestle tables once the rest of Serena and Pino’s clan, including Mauro, turned up as well. In the balmy evening, paper lanterns Nonna had kept from past parties swung from the Hills Hoist and fruit trees. Their soft light added to hastily set up kero lamps and candles in empty wine bottles crowded amid dishes, glasses, plates and bottles. People ate and talked and broke into song. From a large cut-off drum a focara was burning, a Calabrian Christmas Eve tradition Nonna’s generation carried on, of keeping a bonfire going to gather around in celebration and to burn away all that is bad from the past.

  ‘Salute a tutti!’ cried Frank, not for the first time, and everyone again clinked glasses.

  ‘Cent’ anni,’ Josie toasted in reply. To a hundred years of health. And among all the clinking I saw she and Serena made sure not to miss Nonna Gia’s wine glass.

  I couldn’t take my eyes from the three women as shared looks passed between them. And I saw them young and alone on the farms after their husbands were interned. How they’d banded together to do the best they could during those daunting years, despite many like Jack being against them. Looking at them now, there was something impressive in how the women held themselves, all in older age, hair greying, creased faces and plumper round their middles, at ease in who they were, how they’d lived, the griefs and missteps, as well as the joys, and what they’d changed. For each time they’d supported one another and pushed back, even a little, in time change grew. So now I might go to university, travel without a wedding ring or chaperone, marry by choice. And it didn’t matter if I had my father’s surname or not.

  ‘Pasta arrabbiata!’ Nonna carried a colossal bowl of her angry spaghetti from the kitchen despite more than thirteen dishes already crowding the table. And this spaghetti was especially hot for I knew Nonna, caught up in all the excitement, had added extra Piccante Calabrese, maybe because she knew I could handle it now, judging by the pointed look she gave me.

  Just as Nonna plunked the bowl on the table, several figures emerged from the dark of the side driveway. Everyone turned. It was Jack, shuffling with a walking stick towards us all, Dianne and Tim either side of him and Dianne’s husband just behind. I heard someone gasp. A hush fell over the tables as they came closer and then an uneasy murmuring. Even the children quieted in the atmosphere. Mum stood up at her seat. Frank did too.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind …’ Dianne smiled and also appeared a bit unnerved, perhaps not expecting quite so many faces to turn to them. ‘We were bringing Dad home and thought we’d pop over and wish you all a merry Christmas.’

  For a moment, it was so quiet there was only the crackling and pop of the bonfire. Many eyes went to Jack. He remained impassive yet his blue eyes blazed, alive and alert in the firelight. Gradually, the gazes turned to Nonna Gia. More murmurings. She took a short breath, got up and came over to stand before them, putting her hands on her hips. Jack looked at her. Gia looked back. She gave a slight nod. Her eyes shifted to Dianne and the others.

  ‘Well, happy Christmas.’ She glanced over to the table and everyone watching, and turned back to them with a smile. ‘Welcome. Come and join us. There’s plenty to eat.’

  Dianne looked to her husband and Tim. Both appeared keen yet unsure about Jack. But as if in answer, Jack directed his walking stick towards the table and shuffled forward.

 

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