Alan had never before sat in the front room. In fact he couldn’t remember ever having seen the front room. The approach to the Fiorelli house had always been via the back door and straight into the kitchen. There, on many a weekend throughout their childhood prior to boarding school days, he and his brother and sister had been welcomed into the fold. The entire extended Fiorelli family would be gathered in that kitchen during the slack season, a birthday, an anniversary, a baptism – any excuse, and sometimes for no specific reason at all. Luigi’s three brothers would arrive with their wives and children. Alfonso, the oldest of the brothers, would play his harmonica and everyone would sing Italian songs and gorge themselves on the food served up by Maria and the cakes and the delicacies brought along by the wives.
Now, somewhere beyond the interminable ticking of the clock, Alan could hear the raucousness of those early days. He could smell the garlic and the herbs and he could taste the richness of the sauces and pastas and cheeses, flavours and textures exotic and unknown to most Australian boys of his age. He remembered how he’d wished that he lived in a cottage like the Fiorellis’ instead of The Big House, and how he’d wished that Luigi was his father instead of Stan the Man . . .
‘You love her?’
Awaiting Luigi’s reaction, Alan had felt his life in the balance. His father’s approval had meant nothing because he knew he would never receive it, so informing his father of his intention had been a mere courtesy. But for all the bravado of his declaration to Paola that they would defy both their parents Alan desperately desired Luigi’s blessing. As he’d waited for the man to speak, his childhood and his future had hovered side by side for what seemed an eternity. In actual fact it had been only seconds.
‘Yes, I love your daughter.
Lo amo tua figlia
,’ Alan repeated, his pronunciation perfect. Paola had been teaching him Italian for some time now.
Luigi nodded. He’d known the answer, he’d had no need to ask, but he’d wanted to hear the boy say the words, and was particularly pleased to hear them in Italian. Paola had spoken to her mother the previous evening and Maria had prepared him for this formal visit: it was the proper way. Luigi did not doubt that Alan Durham loved his daughter, and he knew Alan Durham to be an honourable young man, but he’d voiced his concerns to his wife. There were complications, he’d said, there were many, many complications . . .
‘Beware, Luigi,’ Maria had warned. ‘You must tread a very careful path. Paola loves him more than her life.’
‘You are not of the Roman Catholic faith,’ Luigi now said. This to Luigi Fiorelli was the greatest complication of all.
‘I intend to convert.’ For Alan, the matter of faith was simple. He’d been honest with Paola right from the start, when she’d considered his offer to be one of immense sacrifice.
‘How can it be a sacrifice when I have no particular faith?’ he’d argued. ‘I don’t mean to trivialise the church and all it stands for, Paola, please don’t be insulted, but my conversion would be more for show than anything. Although I promise,’ he’d added earnestly, ‘that I’d make a good job of it to please your parents.’
Paola had not been insulted. She’d laughed. She would have been prepared to abandon the church, thereby risking eternal damnation and breaking her parents’ hearts, all for Alan Durham.
Luigi was impressed beyond words. ‘You would do such a thing for my daughter?’
The man’s amazement at the enormity of his offer made Alan feel like a fraud, but his answer was nonetheless honest.
‘I would do anything for your daughter, Luigi. I would do anything humanly possible.’
Maria had been following the exchange closely, her understanding of English was excellent, but she’d always lacked confidence in speaking the language. She now interrupted the conversation with a quick suggestion to Luigi in Italian, which brought an instant smile to her daughter’s face.
Alan looked from one to the other.
Luigi stood. ‘Maria she say let us talk in the kitchen.’
Paola took Alan’s hand as they walked out the back to the kitchen where seats and stools and a communal wooden bench lined the walls ready to be pulled up to the huge table that dominated the room. Pots and pans hung from hooks in the ceiling beams alongside bundles of dried herbs and strings of garlic, and nestled in the corners of workbenches were baskets of vegetables. Alan had the strangest feeling that he’d come home.
Paola brewed coffee and Maria served slices of the treacly cake Alan so strongly remembered while he and Luigi sat at the table and talked. They talked of many things. Luigi enquired of Stanley Durham’s reaction – he’d been told Alan had planned to tell his parents. Alan naturally did not repeat his father’s words.
‘Dad didn’t take me seriously,’ he said, ‘in fact he dismissed the idea altogether.’
Luigi nodded; he’d have guessed that Stan the Man’s reaction would be along such lines. ‘You will defy your father?’
‘I am prepared to do so, yes.’
‘There will be much anger.’
‘Yes, there will be.’
It was Alan who then brought up the subject of Luigi’s position at Elianne. What if his father chose to become vindictive? But Luigi shrugged off any concern. Ego did not dictate his complacency, as Alan himself well knew. There was not a mill owner in the entire region who would not beg for the services of Luigi Fiorelli. And when Alan queried the position of his brothers, so reliant upon Elianne for the crushing of their cane, the answer to that also was simple. The brothers were highly successful growers. They needed the mill certainly, but the mill needed their cane.
‘The mill, she is a monster, she need constant feeding,’ Luigi said.
The more they talked the more Alan’s hopes soared. Luigi was prepared for the consequences – come what may, he was clearly not going to contest the match.
And the more they talked the more Luigi thought of all it was that Alan was prepared to sacrifice. Stanley Durham was a hard man who might well disinherit his son, Alan would surely know that. Luigi did not worry for Paola’s future should this happen, of course. Alan Durham was gifted. He did not need his father’s wealth. This young man is prepared to forego his wealth and his religion, Luigi thought. My daughter has done well to win such a love.
‘You have my blessing,’ he said. The two stood and embraced. ‘Welcome to my family.’
Hugs were shared all round and Alan presented Paola with the ring that he’d bought her. It seemed right to do so formally in the presence of her parents.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she whispered as he slipped it on her finger. The gemstone was her favourite, as he had well known, a deep violet amethyst that was set simply in a ring of white gold. She had not wanted a diamond.
They agreed they would not flaunt their engagement, that for now she would keep the ring out of sight. She would thread it beside the crucifix that she wore at all times on a chain about her neck. She didn’t mind in the least.
‘It’ll be closer to my heart there anyway,’ she said with a laugh and she kissed him. Paola finally felt safe.
In the Durham household over the remaining week or so of Alan’s holiday, no further mention was made of the suggested engagement. Stan had forbidden any discussion on the subject. While Alan openly courted Paola, taking her to the pictures and dancing at the Palais, Stan, steely-faced and determined, ignored the entire issue.
‘He’s either turning a ridiculously blind eye to the fact that I’m serious,’ Alan said to Kate and Neil, ‘or he’s assuming we’re sleeping together and that I’ll get her out of my system.’ Alan had confided in his brother and sister, but he’d said nothing to his mother of his acceptance by the Fiorellis for fear of the trouble it might cause her. ‘God, he’s a cantankerous bastard!’
The general exodus started in early January. Neil was the first to leave and over breakfast on the morning of his departure he made an announcement that took the others by surprise.
‘I’ve been transferred to 4RAR at Lieutenant Colonel Greville’s request,’ he said, which wasn’t exactly truthful. In trying to return to Vietnam as soon as possible he’d had to pull strings, in fact he’d had virtually to beg. Greville had finally accepted him into the battalion because he was a veteran of the Battle of Long Tan and his presence would prove invaluable among the new national servicemen.
‘So what’s that mean?’ Alan asked.
‘It means I leave for Vietnam in the middle of the year and I’d like to get the family farewells over and done with now while we’re all here together,’ he said. ‘I won’t come home before I’m posted, it’s tidier this way.’ They all looked at him in astonishment. ‘It’s no big deal,’ he said, aware that he’d shocked them. ‘I’ll be seeing you in Brisbane, Alan, and Dad, you’d be busy as hell here anyway with the start of the crushing, and Mum, I’ll ring regularly, I promise. And I’ll ring you too, Kate, like I always do. It’s better this way, don’t you reckon?’
‘If that’s what you want, son.’ Stan cleared his throat, a little caught out. ‘Your decision of course. If that’s what you want.’
‘That’s what I want.’
An hour or so later farewells were made on the front verandah, Hilda bravely refusing to cry or even reach for her handkerchief, but her feelings so evident she might as well have been sobbing, while Stan, gruffer than ever, fought with little success to disguise the depth of his emotion.
‘Stay safe, son,’ he said, clapping Neil heavy-handedly on the back as they embraced.
‘Sure, Dad.’ Neil then hugged his mother. ‘I’ll ring you next week, Mum, I promise. See you in Brisbane, Alan,’ he said with a wave and then he was down the front steps and into the passenger seat of the Holden, where Kate was waiting behind the wheel, Cobber and Ben in the back.
‘Christ I hate goodbyes,’ he said as they drove off, his parents waving from the front verandah as they always did.
Kate kept herself in check when they arrived at the station.
‘Don’t get out,’ he said as he lifted his kitbag from the boot.
She wanted to. She wanted to get out and say ‘Where’s my hug?’ but she didn’t. ‘You will give me a ring from time to time, won’t you,’ she said instead.
‘Course I will, regular as clockwork.’ He put his hand through the open window and tousled her hair the way he used to when they were kids in order to annoy her. It didn’t annoy her now. She loved it. ‘Thanks for the lift, Sis.’ Then he walked off into the station. She waited, ready to give a wave if he looked back, but he didn’t.
Alan was the next to leave. He received a pleasant enough farewell from his father, a perfunctory hug and a slap on the shoulder.
‘Look after yourself, son,’ Stan said. Stan was prepared to forgive and forget. There’d been no further mention of that silly engagement business and while the boy was squiring the Fiorelli girl around town they were presumably sleeping together. Let him have his fun, Stan thought, so long as he’s careful. Surprising Luigi hasn’t put his foot down though.
Stan and Hilda remained on the front verandah ready to wave as the car drove off while Kate and the dogs accompanied Alan to the Holden, Cobber and Ben waiting expectantly, eager to be invited into the back.
‘Sit,’ Kate ordered, and they did, obedient but dejected, aware they were not to be included on this trip. ‘Take all the time you want, Al,’ she said quietly. ‘Go through each of them slowly: there’s a lot of material to absorb.’
The boot of Alan’s car was stacked with the ledgers and a matching folder for each containing the pages of Kate’s meticulously typed translation. She and Alan had transferred the lot from the boot of her Holden to his just the previous day. Although he would be unable to read the original ledgers, Kate had decided to include them by way of authentication.
‘I found them under the house three years ago,’ she’d explained, ‘Grandmother Ellie’s diaries, or rather her scribblings, as she called them. They’re in French, the translations have taken me over two years, and I want you to read them. I need your opinion.’
He’d registered her seriousness. ‘My opinion about what?’ he’d asked.
‘About whether or not we should show them to Dad,’ she’d said. ‘Or any other member of the family for that matter.’
‘But surely we should.’ Alan had been mystified. ‘Hell, Grandmother Ellie’s diaries! Mum’ll be over the moon!’
‘No she won’t.’ Kate had decided to give her brother no preconceptions of what to expect, apart from a warning. ‘You’re in for some shocks, Al.’
‘Call me when you’ve finished them,’ she now said as he climbed into the Holden. ‘I’ll come up to Brisbane during a term break and we’ll discuss what to do.’
‘Right you are.’
Kate joined her parents on the verandah and they all waved at the Holden as it pulled out of the main drive and set off along the dirt track towards the Bundaberg–Gin Gin Road, Alan’s hand waving back at them through the open window.
It was in the last week of January that Kate left for Sydney. She could have stayed for at least another fortnight, but she wanted to do some preparation before the start of first term, she told her parents. This was to be the fifth and final year of her Vet Science course, although if everything went according to plan she intended to continue to a PhD.
In truth, Kate didn’t need to prepare for first term, but she was ready to return to Sydney. Elianne seemed empty without her brothers. When Neil and Alan were there she could return to her childhood. All three of them could. But without her brothers things weren’t quite the same.
So much has changed, she thought as she watched her grandfather asleep, remembering the capable man she’d known throughout her early years. Bartholomew had been the backbone of Elianne. Not loud and showy like his son, but quiet, hardworking and diligent, a man of great dignity.
Kate had popped in to her grandfather’s quarters to say goodbye, but she was loath to wake him, he looked so peaceful sleeping in his armchair. Will he still be here on my next trip home? she wondered. Or is this possibly the last time I’ll see him?
Bartholomew’s fragility was such these days that the family had discussed whether or not they should send word to his daughter in Canada, but when they’d suggested the idea to Bartholomew himself, he’d been adamantly against it. He’d even written a note to his son, his spidery hand delivering an unequivocal command.