Twenty-Two
MAMA AND I decided on a splurge the first Sunday in September. A day when we do just that. Splurge. Break the budget. Stuff ourselves. And celebrate the start of spring.
We decided on one of the harborside restaurants, and although the weather outside was cool, it wasn’t wet enough to ruin the view.
I like the harbor on a cool day. The waters look as if they have character, as if they are going through their own turmoil. It looks almost human, unlike its perfection on a summer’s day.
“This has to be the most beautiful city in the world,” I said looking around.
“Says the expert after she’s just seen her only other city,” Mama said drily.
“I liked Adelaide,” I defended. “It has lots of character and the most beautiful houses, Mama. We could be living in decadence compared to the crazy prices they have here. Michael says that the rent here is killing him, but it’s no use buying something because he’ll be going back to Adelaide next year.”
“Really.”
“He’s not talking to me at the moment, by the way. Ever since I had to get him to sign the walkathon sheet he’s gone on and on about it. He reckons he’s disgusted with me. If I have one more person disgusted with me, I’ll slit my wrists.”
“Remind him about the incident with him skipping school to see the Rolling Stones one day,” she laughed.
“Just wait till I see him.”
“I’m so happy that you’re getting to know him, Josie. I was scared you’d both reject each other, and that would have been so sad,” she said, handing me the menu.
I shrugged.
“He’s ultracool, you know. Not cool as though he drives a sports car and dresses trendy, but he’s a cool guy. He’s up-front. No bull.”
“Take things slowly, and they’ll work out.”
“I’m surprised, you know,” I told her. “I thought you’d be possessive and jealous and wouldn’t let me near him and all that jazz. I would have respected your wishes if that had been the case.”
“You would not,” Mama laughed. “Anyway, he poses no threat to me when it comes to you. You’re old enough to make your own decisions, although if you come to me next year and tell me that you want to go live in Adelaide I’ll shoot you through the eyes.”
“Shucks. Cross that one off my list,” I said with a laugh.
The waiter came along and we ordered lunch, laughing along with him as he tried his Italian out on us.
“I wish we could do this every week,” Mama said with a sigh. “I would have liked to have given you more out of life, Josie.”
“Mama, you sound as if one of us is dying, for God’s sake. I grumble about my life because I’m selfish, not because you couldn’t provide. For a one-parent family we are pretty perfect.”
“Perfect?”
We both laughed.
“Well, you are anyway. Michael told me a bit about when you guys were young. He said you were sexy.”
“That’s because he was a sex-crazed young man when I knew him. He was very smug. Girls were crazy about him and mothers adored him and wanted him for their daughters. He seemed to breeze through life with no problems.” She looked sad and pensive and I wondered if she had really ever got over him. “Except I was a problem. You and I. He should have had the guts to deal with it. I was sixteen years old, Josie, and I was so scared when he left me to face my father. My father was the most terrifying thing in my life.”
“Why did Nonno treat you like he did?”
She shrugged.
“I don’t think he really loved me and I always wondered why. I don’t think he loved Nonna either, but she was such a good wife to him. She never took anyone’s side but his. It was as if she owed him something, but I can’t understand what. She was beautiful. It wasn’t as if she was ugly and nobody else would marry her.”
“You never talk much about him.”
She gave me a quick smile.
“I used to pray at night that Zia Patrizia and Zio Ricardo were my parents, but then I’d feel as if I was betraying my mother. No matter what, I know she loves me in her own way. The trouble is that she feels guilty about it.”
“I’d love to marry someone like Zio Ricardo. He sounded so romantic when he was young. Nonna’s told me stories about them all.”
“He couldn’t take me in when I was pregnant with you. My father wouldn’t have let my mother see her sister again if he did. But he let Robert’s mother take me in, saying that he couldn’t govern who his daughter let into her house.” She looked pensive. “My father practically spat at me. Called me every name under the sun. A tramp, a slut. He hit me across the face and even hit my mother. Worse still, he never saw you,
Josie. Never saw his own granddaughter. Tell me, what comes first? What other people think of your family, or love?”
“You went through so much for me, Mama, and I never seem to appreciate it, but I promise that I’m changing.”
“Oh, Josie,” she sighed. “I’m not telling you this to make you feel guilty.
You are the most important person in my life. You are the only person who really loved me properly. Everyone else I’ve ever loved has hurt me.
Michael Andretti broke my trust. My mother has always held back and my father never loved me in the first place. But you have never left my side, and the disrespect you’ve shown me has been the disrespect any child shows her parent.”
“Oh God, Ma, if you go on any longer I’ll have to go to confession next quarter with nothing to confess because I’ll believe I’m a paragon of virtue.”
“We won’t go that far.”
We ate lunch in semi-silence and decided to continue our splurge with ice cream at Darling Harbour, where we sat on the pier watching the activity around us. There was a jazz band playing, and farther along a street entertainer was doing a comedy act, grabbing people who were walking by to assist him. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and basking in the atmosphere.
“Michael has a girlfriend,” I decided to tell Mama.
“Really.”
“But he didn’t sleep with her while I was there. No way. I was with him every minute.”
“I hope you weren’t snooping or driving him crazy, Josie.”
“Of course not. I just reckon he mustn’t love her at all if he doesn’t feel the need to make love to her. You said he was sex starved when he was
young.”
“I’m sure he’s learnt how to control himself now. Maybe you should butt out of his affairs.”
“He really loved you once, you know,” I said, watching for a sign on her face.
“Josie, life is not a romance novel. People fall out of love. People disappoint other people and they find it very hard to forgive. We both were so young, and Michael having to move to Adelaide upset his life just as much as it upset mine. But we survived and we’ve both got on with our lives and we’re different people. You’re the only thing we have in common.”
“He calls me an ‘obnoxious creation.’”
Mama tried to keep a straight face but failed.
“Let’s go home, Miss Obnoxious Creation. We’ll do Jane Fonda and ease our guilt about this splurge.”
“As if you need your guilt eased.”
So we went home and did the Jane Fonda exercise tape, easing our guilt.
But I just couldn’t get the idea of Mama and Michael being together out of my mind.
I wish life was a romance novel. The idea of them as a couple is nicer than the idea of them with other people. I almost feel optimistic, because I’m the very thing they have in common, and I know that I will always keep them together somehow.
