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‘All you need do is play. You must leave everything else to me, si?’
Sunday arrived and the Fresu household became a tense allegro. Alba’s fingers ached for the instrument in the house she’d been barred from. Her heart raced with the prospect of when and how Signora Elias would explain her offer to her parents, which they’d decided to delay till after Marcellino’s wedding. Giovanna ran up and down the stairs remembering and forgetting, her feet stomping the stone as she switched scarves, exchanged earrings, begged her sons to wear what they had agreed the night before. In one hand she clutched a cloth bag of grains and in another a basket of rose petals. She and Grazietta had stayed in the previous evening, plucking them from their stems, listing the wrongs of the neighbours and the fanfare with which Marcellino’s prospective mother-in-law had dealt her demands for his wedding to her daughter Lucia. Alba noticed her mother’s streaming thoughts had more in common with the discarded thorny stems than the petals as they released their delicate scent between the women’s tugging thumbs. At last it was the morning of the largest wedding in town to date, a triumph Alba’s mother bore with pride and panic.
Alba heard her mother fly up the stairs one more time and took the chance to step into the kitchen for some water. Marcellino leaned against the tiled counter.
‘You look like a ghost,’ she said.
He glanced up and gave a half smile. He sighed, ran his hand over his black hair, cemented with gel.
‘Break the habit of a lifetime and say something nice,’ he replied.
Alba noticed his skin was salty with nervous sweat. She returned his half smile in reply. Marcellino ruffled her hair, nearly pulling out the flower Giovanna had insisted she wear. She felt like a hedge trying to dress as a rose. Her mother had painted over her bruises, but they still blushed through the make-up.
Bruno poked his head around the doorframe. He reached out a small shot glass to his first-born, filled to the brim with acquavite. There were no words to accompany the gesture, only a complicit silence. Marcellino’s eyes widened with the fire coursing down his throat. Bruno laughed and took his son’s cheeks in his hands. Alba couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her father so happy. Would he do this to her once he heard her music? Would he understand the gift Signora Elias had given her? It was the first time Alba could remember seeing his smile take over his face with complete abandon. Her heart twisted into a knot. Bruno shot her a glance. A warning? She would have liked to find the words to reassure him that she wouldn’t be starting a fight at the party, but a stubborn silence froze her face into well-rehearsed diffidence; the night before, she’d heard her parents argue over where Mario’s father, Gigi, and the family would be seated to make sure that Alba wouldn’t cause unnecessary problems.
The men left and bundled into a large black sedan Fiat. Giovanna, Grazietta and Alba scooted onto the leather back seat of a smaller vehicle. At once the line of cars waiting outside their house started sounding their horns. The caravan of trumpeting cars wove through Ozieri, announcing to the few people who were not invited that the son of one of the most successful families in town was about to marry the love of his life. The narrow viccoli were filled with the bombardment of metallic orchestration, the rumble of the engines, the treble of the obnoxious klaxons. The cars filled every nook around the cathedral, a metallic cluster of ants upon the cobbles. Cars were eked into narrow spaces at angles, double-parked, a breath of space between them, whilst the Fresu clan headed up to Lucia’s flower-strewn house for Marcellino to collect his bride. Lucia’s mother greeted Giovanna with two kisses. Wine was passed around. Voices collided like currents bouncing off the marble floors and up the stone walls and concave ceiling. The eldest aunt threw flowers over Lucia’s head, a face floating in a meringue of lace and tulle. Grains were thrown over Marcellino for fertility. A plate was smashed. The cheers were an assault on Alba’s ears, but her mother’s face was streaked with tears and Bruno’s infectious smile made everyone believe him to be the proudest of fathers.
Violent happiness thundered around her. The claustrophobic energy reminded Alba her music might swerve towards unavoidable disappearance. Her father made no secret that her destiny lay behind the counter at the officina, learning from Mario’s father no less, overseeing the parts and books. Alba decided it was his prolonged punishment for what she’d done to his son. Every Saturday from now on was to be spent beside him learning every detail of the job. What pleasure would be found in the quiet order of nuts and bolts? The idea of listening to the customers and their mechanical needs made her heart ache. To Mario’s father, customers’ car stories elongated into detailed descriptions of domestic concerns, delivered with mechanical precision. He oiled their worries, wiped them clean off their conscience, and then replaced them with new thoughts. Alba couldn’t picture herself doing the same. The knot in her chest twisted a little tighter.
In the cathedral, the priest intoned a mass they all knew by heart whilst the echoes of the crowd rippled whispers up the stone like a September sea caressing the white sands of the shore. The couple were blessed, then stepped out into the glare of the mid-morning sun, where they were showered with more grains of rice and petals and cheers. The snaking parade of cars then curved through the valley, pumping out their triumphant cries with a further blast of horns vibrating the sunny stillness towards the plains. When they reached the new headquarters of the officina, waves of people flooded the hangar where the cars were usually stored, now moved and parked outside, filling the surrounding tarmac, to allow shelter of the seven hundred invitees. Tables stretched from one end to another with a central one heaving with food.
Vast trays offered every kind of salad, sliced meats and cheeses, which the guests dived into as if everyone had refrained from eating for the entire week in preparation. Servers swarmed the tables after that with trays of fresh gnocchetti, linguini with bottarga and fresh ravioli. The king prawns that followed were almost punishment, but the guests soldiered on, plates heaped with discarded pink shells, fingers sticky and happy with parsley and garlic juice. Wine sloshed between glasses, onto tablecloths, onto some men’s shirts. When the roasted suckling pigs were pushed in on a trolley, they were met with cheers.
Alba watched the town before her from her seat at the head table, ignoring the knowing stares at her bruised face beneath the layers of pink blusher. Her father swayed between tables, shaking hands, laughing full-bellied, her mother’s feathers sprayed with pride, her brothers among the guests greeting everyone like princes. Several tables beyond theirs, Raffaele sat beside his parents looking his usual pale self, his own face a healing map of surface wounds. Alba shot him a look, counting the seconds until she could get him outside and lay into him for being in any way complicit with the obnoxious plan for them to marry. They had to stay visible at least for the meal before she could find a quiet corner for them to talk.
A chorus of glass tinkling rose from the tables, to yells for the couple to kiss. ‘Bacio! Bacio!’ the guests belted, a canon of bass and tenor, soprano laughter. The tempo quickened, till it galloped towards consummation. Marcellino and Lucia leaned into each other, pressed their lips together, and the room exploded with applause.
Once the first feast reached its end, Alba took the opportunity to escape. Outside, the air was hot against her skin. The sun was beginning its golden descent towards the mountains, their purple silhouettes rising into focus.
‘I’ve been going crazy not being able to talk to you!’ Raffaele called out, breathless.
Alba turned. He stood a few steps behind her, his vanilla skin turning amber, the sun streaking across the healing scrapes on his forehead.
‘You’ve lost your mind!’ she blurted. ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I want to hurt you.’
‘Yes, I’m fine, thanks, my friend, how are you?’
Alba shook her head. ‘You’re the insane one here, not me.’
‘Actually, I’ve accepted our escape route.’
‘For someone so clever your common sense has some seriously arrested development.’
Raffaele grabbed her shoulder. ‘You want to die here?’
‘No dramatics, Ra’.
‘We get married – we get to do what we like with our lives. Real lives. What town do you think we’re living in, Alba? We both know what plans they’ve made for you. And they don’t involve Elias.’
Alba stiffened.
‘You don’t think I’ve put two and two together? The way you speak about music. The way your face lights up like a flame when you’ve played me some of the records she gave you at my house? Come on. You don’t have to be a detective to know that spending every morning with a music teacher insinuates you are her pupil.’
‘Save your smart-ass for someone else, Ra. They stopped me going after the fight. Why do you think I’ve had my brothers following me like shadows?’
‘And it’s killing you. Alba, this is me. Not some idiot. I’m not going to tell anyone. Obviously. Crazy that we’re even having this conversation.’
Alba pinned him with a stare.
‘Don’t be like that. I’m just …’ His voice trailed off for a moment.
‘I thought you were my friend,’ she whispered, fighting tears of frustration and almost winning.
‘I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.’
Alba turned her gaze away from him, playing chess manoeuvres in her mind to escape her corner.
‘My parents will be expecting a good match for me,’ he said, undeterred, releasing his hands from her. ‘I don’t want to spend my life with another woman. It makes me feel like I’m dying. You don’t want to spend your life behind the counter of an officina – so why don’t we cut our losses, do the stupid thing, and then move away from it all?’
Alba turned to him, eyes stinging. ‘You’re talking shit.’
‘At least I’m talking.’
Her breaths rose in her chest.
‘I got the acceptance letter from the University of Cagliari yesterday. I don’t know how I’m going to cope without you, Alba. We know each other’s secrets.’
Not all of them, Alba thought.
‘I don’t think there’s a soul out there I could trust like I do you. And it terrifies me.’
Alba held her friend’s cheek in her hand. His skin was soft where he had shaved. She took a breath to tell him about her offer from the accademia. Mario’s sneer interrupted before she could. ‘People normally go someplace private to do that shit.’
The pair twisted round to him as he threw a cigarette into his mouth and lit it.
‘People normally don’t interrupt conversations they’re not part of,’ Alba snapped.
‘Planning on swinging for round two, Alba? Your papà would love that. At your brother’s wedding of the year and all.’
Alba pinned him with a stare. Mario flicked his ash down onto the dusty earth by her shoes. ‘Don’t know what you see in her, Raffaele,’ he jeered.
Raffaele didn’t return his glance.
‘Your dad’s pissed as a fart, Alba,’ Mario said, flicking her a diagonal grin.
She watched Mario take a deep drag on his cigarette, the orange-ruby light dipping his skin a richer olive, the thick mass of eyelashes potent shades for his jeering eyes.
‘Anyway, get back to your necking. Your dads will be organizing your big day in no time.’ He scuffed the dirt. ‘What?’ he asked, taking another drag. ‘Frustrating to have to hear it as it is and not be able to throw a bottle at me?’
He turned back to the hangar, which hummed with song now, a call-and-response chant, each verse interrupted by the throng in unison.
‘He likes you,’ Raffaele said.
Alba shot him a look.
‘I know you’d like me to say he’s straight out terrified of you. But when you’re a stupid boy choked by the feelings you have for someone you behave like him. Pretty much how I deal with Claudio on a daily basis. Either that or I act like I’m totally indifferent.’
Raffaele’s smile was fringed with sadness.
‘The next few months are going to be intense. I know it. Dad’s got big plans for me. I’ll do anything to take the heat off.’
‘I need to talk to you.’
‘That’s what we’re doing,’ he replied, just as Salvatore came bounding out of the hangar.
‘Alba, Raffaele! Babbo says to come in, they’re about to toast you!’
Alba couldn’t get her response out before they were dragged inside to deafening applause.
‘Please God, these two will be the next!’ Bruno shouted. The crowd stood, gleaming eyes that Alba felt were seeming to wish imprisonment on them both. Her bones felt brittle, as if they’d never felt the response of a piano’s song beneath them, calling out all that was hers to utter in secret, filling the air with melodic freedom, nor never would again.
She tried to swallow, but her mouth remained dry.
6 (#ulink_2e906292-748e-5d41-95c0-89d8228f94c7)
Fuoco
a directive to perform a certain passage with energy and passion. Con fuoco means with fire, instruction to play in a fiery manner
A few days later, Signora Elias dropped by to speak with Giovanna and offer a cordial invitation to come to hers for coffee, an official thank-you for all the time she and Alba had worked for her, she’d said, in a way that Giovanna was left with no power to refuse. The date was set. During the weekend, after school had reached its end, Alba and her parents would come to her house. Never had five days felt so close and far away.
Now, at the beginning of the week, all of Ozieri crowded around the huge bonfire in Piazza Cantareddu to celebrate St John the Baptist. Beside the fire, people sat upon wooden benches drinking wine and carving slabs of cheese from enormous pieces, wrapping them into blankets of bread and toasting the feast. Applause began from one end of the square and rippled up to where Alba sat with her mother and Grazietta.
‘Abaida!’ Grazietta called above the din. ‘Isn’t that Gigi’s boy? I didn’t know he was singing with the men now!’
Alba shot a look across to where a group of men were tightening into a circle intoning a chord before their song. She scanned the familiar faces and there, beside his father, was Mario. His flat black hat flopped over one ear, his white shirt billowing out from beneath a black tunic. Their voices vibrated with a warm, burnished sound, glistening copper tones. Then they stopped, took a breath in unison, and began to sing. She listened as Mario’s voice lifted up above the group, the purest column of sound she’d ever heard. His timbre woody yet crisp, golden and bright, full of yearning. It was impossible to match this voice with the imbecile she loathed. This couldn’t be the arrogant boy flicking ash towards her feet. Where was his snarl, the sideways grimace, the unattractive swagger? He took a deeper breath and his voice rose higher still, enhanced by the earthy bass chord beneath, the crowd hushed at the sound. The other men’s voices glowed blood red and ochre, and above, the sky blue of his love song. Alba felt the tears in her eyes but stopped them from falling. Her mother mopped her own with a frenetic hand. Grazietta wound an arm around her.
‘People are born with this gift, Giovanna,’ Grazietta whispered, thrilled. ‘You can’t teach someone that. God bless him. What a voice. From God I say. What a sound.’
His eyes lowered from his upward gaze and found hers. She watched, her stare impenetrable. It was her turn to gaze through a crack and he knew it.
The crowd burst into cheers. Gigi’s friends patted him on the back. Some of the boys in their class knocked Mario’s hat off his head and whacked him with it. Then the group merged towards the other end of the piazza where a smaller fire edged towards embers. The children lined up on one side. One of the parents belted out instructions most wouldn’t hear above the noise. The first child burst into a sprint, then leaped over the flames. The crowd cheered.
Raffaele slipped in behind Alba. ‘We have to do it, you know, it’s our last year.’
‘I think we need more than a leap over flames to get us out of our mess.’
‘Now who is being dramatic?’
‘Pragmatic.’
‘We’re officially not kids next year, Alba. Besides, you want Mario to think you don’t have the guts?’
‘Why would I care what he thought?’
‘Saw you watch him singing.’
Alba thwacked an elbow into his side. He grabbed her wrist and ran them on, pulling her behind, Alba laughing in spite of herself, till they fell into line. Mario and his mates were coercing one another with shoves and pelted insults. One of the parents screamed to the younger child ahead of them, stay away from the embers and impervious to the kerfuffle behind them.
The music from the other side of the square was louder now, belting through the speakers. Alba thought she caught sight of her parents waltzing. All of a sudden, she was at the front of the line. Raffaele’s voice hummed in her ear. ‘Remember, you’ve got to think of stuff you want rid of! St John will sort it. Take away the bad.’
‘You don’t believe that shit and I know it,’ she screamed back.
‘And you love it more than you’d know, pagangirl.’
He knew her better than she’d like to admit. Besides, there were only a few days between now and her parents discovering her daughter had received the most prestigious invitation they could have ever dreamed up. A marriage to a local wealthy boy was nothing compared to that. And yet. She brushed off her unease, losing herself for a breath in the fire as it burned, insistent, free.
A snatched breath, then she charged towards it. The summer air kissed her cheeks as she cut through. Her legs felt powerful. Excitement rose up through their fibre, her chest light and free. She leaped. Time melted. Below, the dancing flames. The sounds of voices swallowed up by the dark. There was only the red lick of the light beneath her. She rose higher. The amber glow upon a face on the opposite side of the circle huddled around the leapers met hers. The moment hovered, hot, hidden. Mario’s eyes were inscrutable. Then the cobbles rose to meet her with a thud as her gum soles landed. Ozieri crashed back into her ears, a fanatic crescendo, a sforzando chord full of authority, defiance and rebellion. Mario disappeared into the crowd.
Signora Elias’s piano room smelled of vanilla and almond. Giovanna agreed to let Alba go ahead of her, whilst she waited for Bruno to accompany her a little later. Alba arrived to practice to find the kitchen counters topped with several baking trays. There was a neat parade of fig jam–filled tiricche, fine white pastry twists cut with a serrated wooden wheel leaving edges like lace. In a ceramic dish Signora Elias’s famed sospiri were laid in a circle with a tiny space between each so that the heat wouldn’t melt them and make them stick together. These were Bruno’s favourite, but Alba knew no amount of sugar would sweeten the betrayal they were about to reveal.
‘Don’t hover in your nerves, Alba. You leave this all to me. All you must do is warm up and play. Everything else rests on my shoulders, do you understand?’
Alba wanted to but she knew her father better than that.
‘At some point our secret had to come out, no? This is the nature of secrets. They have a lifespan of their own. Eventually they too must die, as they shift from the dark into the light.’
Alba felt her eyebrows squeeze into a frown.
‘Goodness, my metaphors will do nothing to ease your mind I’m sure. Off you go, I have things to do here now.’
Alba let herself be shooed back out towards the piano. She took her seat as she had done for all those mornings up till today. Her scales began a little slower than usual. Her mind began to percuss the fragment of space between the notes, the middle quiet where one note ends and another begins, the subtle shifts in frequency urging her towards the instrument and away from her rattling nerves. As her fingers spidered up and down the keyboard Alba felt the warmth of that wordless place, one she was always being criticized by her father for living in most of the time but the very strength this instrument required. She didn’t hear the bell ring until it jangled for what must have been the fourth time. Her fingers lifted off the keys as if scalded. Signora Elias appeared at the kitchen doorway wiping hers.
‘You stay exactly where you are, signorina. I will let your parents in.’
Every sound thrummed like a chord cutting across a silence: the creak of the door, its solemn close, her mother’s footsteps along the shiny floors, tentative clips towards the piano room. Giovanna entered. She registered Alba seated upon the ottoman.
‘Please, do get comfortable, Signora Giovanna,’ Signora Elias said, leading her into the room she cleaned once a week. ‘The coffee is just about ready. Alba, do help me with the sweets, si?’
Alba was relieved to be asked to do something other than sit beside her mother, who looked stiff. She scooped up two plates and returned to the table in front of the ottoman. Giovanna gave her a peculiar look, swerving embarrassment or perhaps pride, Alba couldn’t decide which.
‘And Signore Bruno?’ Signora Elias asked without a trace of emotion, though his absence made Alba feel more uneasy than before. She placed the coffee pot on a holder and poured Giovanna a dainty china cup and handed it over.
‘He’s got caught with a terrible customer, signora,’ Giovanna replied, breathy. ‘I stopped by at the officina. It’s awfully busy. There was simply no way he could get away. He sends his apologies. It’s just us women together. Probably best. You know how he is, signora.’
Signora Elias smiled, unruffled. Alba shifted along the velvet, which prickled her bare legs below the hem of her cut-off shorts.
‘Do have a sweet, Signora Giovanna, I made them especially. It’s wonderful to have someone to bake for. Try one of each.’
