Personality Read online

  When she wants to get at me she says I’m selfish and tells me about the time I covered Alfredo with leaves up in the meadow. I was only playing, I say. ‘You weren’t only playing, you made him stop breathing‚’ she said.

  ‘You stop me breathing‚’ I said once.

  ‘That’s just an evil thing to say to your mother.’

  One day – Maria was just a wean – she came into the house and said she would love a new pair of gloves to go with her new suit. ‘I won’t spend the money‚’ she said. And what she did, she went out and bought some chamois leather; it’s soft and easy to sew, she said. She bought a pattern and she sat there all winter making the gloves. Messing about with scissors and pencils and pins: oh, the fuss she made, how she was going to have embroidery on them, and sew elastic in at the wrists, or change from chamois to doeskin, make them suede on the hands, or start over again and make them gauntlet-style. She made us sit and watch her at night with the gloves. My father was dead. ‘I will do without the gloves if I can’t make them myself‚’she said.

  ‘I’m a grown woman‚’I said. ‘I can’t sit here and watch you making these gloves. I’m going up the road.’

  ‘You blame me for everything‚’ she said.

  ‘Live your own bloody life.’

  ‘Huh‚’ she said. ‘Life.’

  And she never made the gloves. She wouldn’t buy new gloves and she couldn’t make them and we wouldn’t take the blame so everything ended in nobody saying a word. ‘Laugh at me‚’ she’d say if I ever brought it up, ‘but if you knew the sacrifices I had made you would smile on the other side of your face.’

  If it was up to her my Giovanni would never have looked twice at me. He would be somebody else’s and that would suit her just fine. That would please her no end. Poor Rosa, who could never get a man worth holding on to. Poor Rosa, she just sits up there surrounded by dirty nappies. She doesn’t have a life at all. Poor Rosa. Men. She hasn’t had much luck there. Trouble is she’s got too much anger in her, Rosa. She’d frighten a man away so she would, with her carry-on. Wouldny listen to my advice years ago when I said watch yourself hen you’re going places in the world. Italian men are good so far as it goes but remember you’ve got to have a wee bit of ambition for yourself, Rosa. You don’t just sit down and take life on the chin. The Tambinis were meant for better things, Rosa, just look at your father.

  I can remember the huge piles of leaves I put over Alfredo and even yet I remember the smell of them for God’s sake. It was a cold Rothesay day and the leaves were rotting. We were only playing up there in the meadow so we were. You don’t think I would hurt Alfredo? He’s my twin. We started off laughing and Alfredo just disappeared under the leaves and when I looked up it was foggy in the meadow and my daddy was up ahead and I just stopped for a second to see what it was like with the smell of the leaves and nobody there but me. When I ran away I thought Alfredo would come, I promise you I thought he would come. Thought he was right behind me.

  Just the other day Maria was talking on the phone to-one of the people from London – a producer, they wanted to hear her speaking voice. I was standing in the hall and there was nothing left of my nails I’m telling you. You just can’t argue with talent is what I say. Sometimes I wish I had her confidence I’m no kidding. For a wee girl that size she can hold her own with anybody. I’ll say that for Giovanni, he’s good to Maria; he never passes that wee lassie but he’s got a joke for her or a smile. I would definitely say that kind of thing has boosted her confidence no end. I hope and pray I’m not like my mother, that’s all.

  Maria and I do wee things together. Sometimes it’s like we’re more like sisters than anything else. I think she knows sometimes my nerves get the better of me, right, but she just gets on with it. You know that way, even with somebody young like that, sometimes if they’re calm then they sort of calm you down as well just the same. Never mind. I’m good to Maria and I don’t need to tell her that, she knows that. We’re more like sisters that’s the thing.

  We made a cake the other day. I’ll tell you it’s a good job it’s singing Maria’s good at because I’m not kidding you she is definitely not one for the cooking. All the old Italian dishes are in the scrapbook but no, Maria looks at them as if they were written in Latin. No way. She would not thank you for cooking lessons either. The thing is but you’ve got to learn a wee bit; a lassie can’t go through life not knowing how to boil an egg. I mean men would run a mile from the like of that. Not that she’ll be looking for a man, she’s got all that in front of her, but you know what I mean. Even just to be independent a woman should be able to turn her hand in the kitchen.

  I must admit I was never one for reading. I’ll give my mother her due on that one, she was a reader; me and Alfredo had our heads full of fairies and Rapunzel and all that palaver and it was her that read them out to us. Alfredo absolutely loved it, but not me – give me an old movie or a record any day, but I wouldny thank you for a book. But making the cake I brought down a book from years ago – an old pink book, old as tea – it had been in the house for as long as I can remember. It was daft I suppose but there were some good things in it. The Modern Girl’s Guide to Charm and Personality.

  Maria sat at the kitchen table looking at a TV Times as usual and moving her lips to a song. I put all the stuff out on the table and got her attention. ‘So let’s get on with this cake, Maria. Look here.’ And then I read a bit from the book. Maria probably thought I was going off my head.

  Here’s the book and here’s the bit:

  Admittedly, some household chores are rather deadly. You dust a room, and it looks much the same after you’ve finished; you sweep the carpet, and who can see any difference? But with baking it’s another story. You do see something for your labours, even if a greedy family do not allow you to see it for very long. Indeed, that is one of the snags of home baking. The cakes and buns made at home are so much more popular than the shop varieties that they disappear with depressing rapidity, but that is quite a cheap price to pay for the reputation of turning out good ‘eats’.

  And Maria said right away, Oh boring, we’ve already done stuff like this in Home Economics, can I go up the Amusements with Kalpana? No you will not, lady, I said. You will sit right here and spend a wee bit of time with your mother if you know what’s good for you. I mean it’s not as if I crack the whip around Maria and her friends. I would just like a wee bit of input now and then. I mean that’s all you hear from them – amusements, films, running here and there, and busy all the time with rubbish. It’s not all just fun and games I told her. They get away with holy murder the lassies nowadays I’m telling you, and so I said just you sit there lady.

  ‘Sultana cake is made by the creaming method‚’ it said, and as I read it out I pointed to the stuff and Maria started lifting and laying. There it was: three cups of flour, a half pound butter, half pound sugar, half cup sour milk, three eggs, three-quarters pound sultanas, one and a half teaspoonfuls baking powder. Method: cream the butter and sugar and add the sour milk. Break the eggs separately in a saucer, then drop each in singly, and beat them well. Sift the flour and the baking powder and add, then put in the fruit, and beat to your heart’s content.

  We fairly enjoyed ourselves by the end. Maria was mixing and filling the tins and she hardly looked up I swear to God. It was like sisters the two of us laughing and her licking the stuff off the spoon and me saying that’s enough you’ll give yourself a tummy ache. That’s what it’s all about, I thought. You know. Learning how to cope is the best thing in the world I said and I could tell Maria was happy because we were doing something together. It’s good for the two of us to spend a bit of time like that.

  When she got back in from seeing Kalpana the smell was everywhere and we opened the oven and it was ready. ‘It looks just like the picture‚’ Maria said, and I said, ‘That’s right, it’s not very hard when you know how, Maria.’ I took up the book and said to her, but listen, it says in the book:

  Whe
n you’ve finished your baking and the cake is safely done, there is still another job waiting for you. I expect you know what it is. Yes. The bowls and spoons and knives that you have used must all be washed up and put away, and the kitchen left as tidy as when you began. ‘A good cook tidies as she goes‚’ as I used to be told when I was learning to bake. There’s something very satisfactory indeed in a happy ending.

  I read this last bit out of the book and then slammed the book shut and laid it in front of her. ‘This is yours now, keep it good‚’ I said.

  ‘Oh mum‚’ Maria said.

  ‘Mum nothing‚’ I said. ‘Don’t mum me. We’ve all got to do our wee bit and that’s a book you should know off by heart.’

  I’m tired telling Maria. You don’t get anywhere in this world just sitting on your backside. Half the time she just looks at me. I say to her don’t think I’m getting onto you Maria –I just want you to stand on your own two feet, that’s all. But we certainly enjoyed ourselves that day. It’s worth spending a wee bit of time. I said to her, I said, ‘Maria, you’ve got your whole life in front of you hen.’ At the end of the night we just sat looking at the cake in the middle of the kitchen table. ‘Goodnight mum‚’ she said. And she went away to her bed as happy as Larry.

  I’m not much of a cake-eater myself and neither is Maria thank God, but it was a good day that, a nice wee lesson for the two of us. When Giovanni came in he put his hand on the cake. ‘This cake’s still warm‚’ he said.

  ‘It’s brand new‚’ I said. ‘Maria made it.’

  10

  Devotions

  In October, Lucia felt the very first of the winter cold. She was walking along the seafront one morning on her way to St Andrew’s, and as she passed the West End Café, sausage rolls and bridies out on trays, she realised she was hungry, and licked her lips. The rain poured down and the seagulls scattered before the shops. On days like these, Lucia felt she was really on an island, she felt the distance in herself, but then she grew comfortable as she realised this was her ground and she had known it for the longest time. Looking down the promenade with its curtain of drizzle, she thought of seafronts the world over, places that held you back before the great currents, where one day, looking out, you could find you were not just looking but waiting.

  She never ate breakfast before Communion. In this respect, as in others, she deferred to Saint Catherine of Siena, who featured in the stained glass of St Andrew’s. The window showed the devils trying to tempt Catherine from the rigours of her fasting. When Lucia arrived at the chapel she took off her coat and looked up: the light of Argyll was passing through the glass, falling on the pews, where her son sat waiting.

  ‘Mammo‚’ said Alfredo, ‘it’s yourself.’

  ‘Aye. Lucky you’ve got your good coat. That’s the rain started.’

  ‘Thought as much. You couldn’t see the hills for fog this morning.’ Lucia placed her missal and beads on the wooden shelf and pulled down the kneeling-cushion. She crossed herself.

  ‘She’s been at me again‚’ said Lucia, kneeling down. ‘I don’t mind telling you, Alfredo, I’ve had it up to here. I hardly dare go into that café the way she is. Determined to be unhappy that lassie when she’s got everything going for her as well. I only go in there to see Maria, but that’s her weapon you see – she wants to turn that wee lassie against me.’

  ‘Don’t be daft, mammo‚’ said Alfredo. ‘She’s just going through a bad patch.’

  ‘And how long’s the bad patch supposed to go on, Alfredo? I don’t know, the way she is, she must give that poor lassie a hell of a time. I feel sorry for Maria. It’s a blessing for her she’s not sticking around here I’m not kidding you. As for him – the boyfriend – he’s worse than useless.’

  Alfredo breathed out. He looked at the altar. He was always overwhelmed by the physicality of the statues, the hands and the eyes, the bones of the arms, the arrangement of legs and the beautiful feet of the saints in their sandals. Over the hours and over the years he had examined every curve and every fingernail on those statues.

  ‘Why can’t people just live their lives?’ Lucia said. ‘Don’t know why people can’t just be happy and get on with it.’

  ‘Are you happy, mammo?’

  ‘What are you asking me that for?’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘There’s nothing the matter with me. She’s taking pills. The girl who works in Hick’s said she’s never out of there. She’s taking tablets.’

  Alfredo kept his eyes forward. ‘She’ll be all right‚’ he said.

  Lucia sighed and stood up and walked over to the candles at the side. She dropped some coins into the box and lit three candles.

  ‘Why do you always do three, mammo?’ he asked when she came back.

  ‘Don’t have the energy I used to‚’ she said. ‘I can’t do as much any more. I always light one for Mario and one for Sofia, God bless them.’

  ‘And who’s the third?’ asked Alfredo.

  ‘I’m too old to hide things now.’ she said.

  ‘I know, mammo. Who’s the third?’

  ‘There was a man on the Arandora Star. You know what happened and God bless us, it was a long time ago. Thought it was all well and gone. But some things that happen to you are there all your life, Alfredo. That’s what people don’t understand when they’re young. Just have to close your mind to it, son, and get on with the day. You think things are past but they never are. I think of that boat.’

  She stopped herself. She didn’t want to remember.

  ‘It doesn’t matter‚’ said Alfredo. ‘As you say it was all another time and what’s the point?’

  ‘You won’t speak to them about it, Alfredo, so you won’t?’ said Lucia.

  ‘No no‚’ he said, ‘I never have,’

  But he knew that Rosa had been told about the Arandora Star and what really happened to Sofia. Their father had told them before he died. They didn’t know why he decided to tell them, but he made them promise never to speak about their sister to Lucia. And then one day Lucia told Alfredo over a cup of tea.

  ‘Your sister didn’t die of leukaemia‚’ she said. ‘She died on the Arandora Star.’

  ‘No, mammo‚’ he said. ‘Only men were on the Arandora Star. The women didn’t get interned. You’re getting mixed up now.’

  ‘Your sister Sofia was on the ship the night it sank, and so was I, Alfredo. That’s all I can tell you now. Your sister died on the Arandora Star and your father never really forgave me. That’s about the measure of it. That’s what happened in my life.’

  Alfredo recalled the day she told him. The chapel seemed to grow darker in the minutes of their conversation and the following silence. He stared into the pews and felt his thoughts descend into the grain of the wood. Lucia’s great secret would always be safe with him. Rosa thought she was a hypocrite, but even she held back; she never told Maria, never told Giovanni, and quietly kept her mother’s great mistake to herself, the invisible source of an unending grudge.

  ‘Some day if I can ever remember I’ll tell you it all,’ said Lucia. ‘There was a man.’

  She looked at her son to see what he would say. He felt she was struggling to go on and say something else but then retreating. ‘A couple of months ago I got a suitcase delivered from the pier. The post office put it on the ferry at Wemyss Bay but then there was some mix-up and they didn’t know who it was meant for and it was taken to Lost Property. They sorted it out and then a young fella brought it up and I had to sign for it. You remember that thing in the paper about all the stuff that was kept in storage in Glasgow at the post office? That suitcase has been sitting good God in the basement of the post office at George Square for over thirty years. It’s a giant place, they never went down there. They said they found it at the back of an old storeroom. A brown suitcase.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Alfredo.

  ‘I put it in the cupboard. I don’t know.’

  ‘So you don’t know what’s inside?’
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  ‘Can’t remember. Old clothes and things I suppose. I’ll sit down with it eventually,’ she said.

  Then she lifted up her rosary beads and joined her hands around them and looked out at the altar. There were only seven or eight people in St Andrew’s, and when the bell rang they all stood up. ‘The future is all Maria now, isn’t it? The past is the past.’

  Alfredo put his hand over his mother’s and unfolded his distant Italian smile. ‘That’s right, mammo,’ he said.

  *

  Maria was always up in the living-room dancing with a hairbrush in front of the mirror. She was going to Madame Esposito’s dance-class (‘Modern, Tap, and Ballet’) every other night after school, and all day Saturday, but she worked out her best routines in front of the mirror at home. That was the thing about Maria: she sang everywhere, her voice shouted out in pubs, cafés, down on the seafront, from time to time in the neighbours’ houses. And she didn’t dwell in rooms as other children did – rather, she placed herself in the middle of them as if every room was a stage, an echo-chamber, built for projection and confidence.

  But her mother’s living-room would remain in her mind as a world apart. Years later she could still provide a list of every ornament and piece of furniture. She spent her first few bedtimes in London counting through them to get to sleep:

  1. The television. An ITT 24-inch. It was rented from Harris’s but bought later as a reconditioned. On top of the TV was a large bowl of fake flowers stuck in green sponge. There was also a brass ‘picture-tree’ featuring cut-out photographs of relatives in the ‘leaves’. Standing on the floor next to the TV was a giant gold-coloured Chinese lady.

  2. The fireplace. A brown surround with plenty of shelves for ornaments and an oyster pattern round the edge. The fire itself had two bars, fake coal, and a little whirligig which made ‘flames’ appear on a plastic screen behind the coal. Above the fire was a picture of an Amazonian lady in a white frame. Her dress was more off than on. Above the fireplace in the middle was a carriage clock. On either side were several porcelain-effect ornaments, usually scenes of a rustic nature, with rosy-cheeked maids and farmers sitting on country stiles. On the row below this were many clear glass fish with a dash of paint trapped inside. Mixed in with these were ceramic rabbits and curled-up cats and carved wooden ornaments featuring deer leaping. The base of the fireplace held a number of more expensive ornaments: glimmering crystals in the shape of pineapples or mice, a bottle of sangria wrapped in black and red leather. This was a present from Spain. On the other side of the fireplace a porcelain Clydesdale horse pulled a cart full of wooden barrels.