Looking for Alibrandi

  The hoods left after that. Slithered away like snakes, more like it.

  Anna picked up her keys with shaking hands and dropped them three times before Jacob picked them up for her.

  “Take her home, Anton. I’ll take Josephine. They might follow them,” Jacob said finally, walking me away from the others.

  I didn’t argue. Not because I saw him as my protector or anything like that. I think, deep down, I just wanted to be with him.

  “Get on the bike,” he snapped.

  “Don’t yell at me.”

  “You’re stupid,” he yelled.

  “Don’t call me stupid,” I cried back.

  “What was all that about? You tell me?” he kept up in the same tone.

  He put the helmet on my head and I got on behind him as he started the bike. I cried all the way home. Howled. Sobbed. Whatever you want to call it. Because a bunch of filthy junkies had said horrible things about my mother, who I had treated so badly.

  Jacob stopped the bike where he had the last time and we sat there for a while before he looked back at me and took off my helmet.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened back there?” he asked gruffly.

  “I spat at him.”

  “What?” he spluttered. “Do you know what used to happen to me when I spat at people? My mother gave me a fat lip. Is that how your mother brought you up?”

  “Don’t you say anything bad about my mother,” I yelled, getting off the bike quickly. “She’s a good mother.”

  He sat there for a while watching me before he sighed and got off.

  “Here’s a hanky. Your nose is running.”

  I ignored him and wiped my nose with my sleeve pathetically.

  “Classy.”

  “Go away,” I mumbled.

  He lifted up my face and handed me the hanky.

  “I hope you haven’t blown your nose on this,” I said, embarrassed.

  “My mother always taught me to walk out of the house with a clean hankie.”

  “Well, your mother must have been quite a lady.”

  “She was,” he said softly.

  I looked up at him for a while and he shrugged.

  “Listen . . . you wanna go out?”

  “Me?” I asked, shocked. “I thought I wouldn’t be your type.”

  “Well, I would have thought that you’d think someone who spits at people and punches them in parking lots and wipes her nose with her sleeve and so on and so forth would be just my type,” he said sarcastically.

  “I broke a girl’s nose with a science book as well,” I added quickly.

  He looked like he was trying to hide a grin and shook his head.

  “Not as meek as I thought.”

  “You’d have to meet my mother,” I said, surprising myself that I would even contemplate it.

  “No way, mate,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t meet mothers.”

  “Well, you can’t go out with me if you don’t meet my mother,” I said angrily.

  “Well, good. I won’t go out with you. It was a stupid suggestion anyway.”

  He got onto the motorbike and slammed the helmet on his head.

  “I probably would never be allowed out with you anyway,” I continued to yell.

  “Oh, does Mummy only let you out with bores like Barton?” he sneered sarcastically.

  “So all well-mannered boys are bores now, right?”

  “I’m not meeting your mother, so that’s that. I suppose you’ll expect marriage next? I heard all you ethnic girls get married young.”

  “You’re nothing but an ignorant Australian,” I said angrily, walking away.

  “And what are you?”

  “I certainly don’t go around generalizing. Good-bye, Jacob.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll meet her,” he said.

  “Well, I probably won’t be able to go out anyway,” I argued.

  I could just imagine the look on my mother’s face if she saw Jacob Coote and his friends hanging out in parking lots, draped all over their bikes; the boys wearing T-shirts that read “Put something between your legs, buy a bike,” and the girls wearing clothing that my mother believes should only be worn in aerobics classes. I looked down at my McDonald’s uniform, which was so far removed from his heavy-metal T-shirt.

  “Go to hell, Alibrandi. I don’t need this shit.”

  He stepped on the pedal of his bike and started it up, but as he rode past me I yelled out his name.

  “Okay, I’ll ask.”

  “Don’t do me any favors.”

  “Listen, you don’t understand a lot of things about the way I was brought up,” I tried to explain.

  “I’ll be here seven-thirty Saturday night. We’ll see a movie,” he sighed. “If you can’t make it I’m in the book. Only Coote in Redfern.”

  He rode away as I yelled, “Try to wear a tie.” Somehow, whether he heard it or not, I knew he wouldn’t.

  Eleven

  MAMA PARKED IN front of the house and turned to me questioningly. Mainly because I was brooding, leaning against the car window, not saying a word.

  “Apart from the fact that you’re not talking to me, are you okay?”

  I shrugged with a sigh.

  “Is it that bad?”

  “Yes.”

  “I went out with the man, Josie. I am not going to marry him.”

  It was a week since our fight.

  “Oh, Ma, it’s not that,” I said, facing her. “How do you put up with me when I treat you so bad?”

  “Oh my God, is this my daughter talking?” she laughed.

  “No, I mean it. God, you spend all your life bringing me up, wasting your youth on a selfish person, yet you never complain.”

  “Josie, are you possessed? I’ve never heard you being this humble.”

  “I wasn’t worth it, Mama. You should have gone through with the abortion.”

  “Oh, stop it, for God’s sake! I had you, Josephine, because I wanted to. I have never ever regretted having you, except when you threw that meat loaf away knowing there are children starving in the world.”

  “I put too much oregano in it anyway,” I sighed, looking out the window. “I’m tired of fighting you. I need a rest.”

  “Your grandmother said that to me too. Maybe we should all give each other a rest.”

  I took her hand and squeezed it.

  “I’m changing, Mama. I’m growing up. I’m finally seeing the light.”

  “I’m glad of that, but to tell you quite honestly, you’re not that bad a person. Personally I think you’re basically a . . . nice person.”

  “Don’t choke on the words,” I said, rolling my eyes as she leaned over to kiss me.

  “I miss not touching you when we’re angry with each other.”

  “Can I ask you a favor?” I said, facing her.

  “Ask away.”

  “I’ve been asked out to the movies on Saturday night by a boy and I really would like to go.”

  “Is that what all this buttering up has been about?”

  I shook my head, determined that she believe me.

  “No way, Mama. If you say no, I’ll accept it. I told you. I’m tired of fighting you. You’re too tough for me.”

  She leaned back in the seat and sighed.

  “John Barton?”

  “No. Jacob Coote.”

  She frowned, pensively.

  “Jacob Coote? Isn’t he the boy who threw eggs at you once?”

  “I know it sounds suspicious, but he really is nice. He’s very deep when he wants to be.”

  “Jose, you know how I feel about letting you go out with boys I don’t know. At least I’m familiar with John Barton from debating.”

  “Mama, have I ever been interested in anyone foolish?”

  “You hang around with Sera. That’s enough evidence to consider you foolish,” she said in a dry tone. “I’ll think about it, okay.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  We got out of the car, grabbing al
l the groceries. Mrs. Sahd, the old lady next door, was on her knees in her garden, still in her dressing gown although it was four in the afternoon. Her dressing gown is like a security blanket to her. I’m sure they’ll bury her in it.

  “Where’s my little Josie? I never see her anymore,” she said, standing up and walking to the fence.

  “It’s a very busy year for her, Mrs. Sahd. It’s very hard to get into university these days if you don’t study,” Mama said, kissing her on both cheeks.

  “Look at her. I remember when she was this high,” she said, holding her hand as high as her thigh.

  Very unlikely that she remembers me that size because she’s five feet tall herself.

  “Send her over some time, Christina. I’m an old woman. I like the company.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Sahd. Josie loves the company as well.”

  I pinched Mama on her side and she moved away.

  “I need to talk to you about those boys, Christina. They are very noisy. The music is much too loud.”

  “I’ll talk to them, Mrs. Sahd. I promise.”

  “Rupert is very upset by them too. He came home the other night with nerves, Christina. I had to put a sedative in his cat food. It was because of the noise, Christina.”

  “Leave things to me, Mrs. Sahd,” Mama said, taking her hand and squeezing it before walking toward our terrace.

  “God knows what else she feeds that cat. He looks like he’s on steroids,” I whispered as she continued to wave to us.

  Mama checked for the mail and walked up the stairs.

  “Did Elvis Presley try to get you into bed?” I asked her.

  “It’s Paul Presilio.” She smiled, unlocking the ground-floor door. “Not that it’s any of your concern, but yes, he did.”

  I looked at her, horrified, and stopped in my tracks.

  “Did you tell him that there is an AIDS epidemic going around? God, what a creep to even try.”

  “Jacob Coote will probably try it on you, young lady, so you’d better have the same opinion.”

  “I’ll tell him that if it’s not on, it’s not on.”

  “You will tell him to keep away from you or your mother will shoot him.”

  “Women are being told to carry condoms in their handbags. Someone told me that wearing one is a bit like taking a shower with your clothes on.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Just someone,” I said airily, rushing up the stairs.

  “I don’t know if I like you discussing condoms with strange men, Josephine,” she yelled after me.

  “Mama, this is the nineties. In the twenty-first century they’ll be blowing condoms up on Romper Room and playing ‘punch, punch, punch the ball’ with them. Face it, the age of innocence is gone. We abused the act of sex and now God’s sitting back and having the laugh of his life.”

  “I don’t think He works that way, Jose.”

  “Well, however He works isn’t the issue. The issue is that because of AIDS, sex will now become the most-talked-about topic in this world, so if you want to start dating, young lady, get used to it,” I teased.

  “Yes, Mum,” she mocked.

  “And, Mama?”

  “Yep.”

  “You mightn’t regret things you’ve done in your life, but I sure do regret things I say,” I said as apologetically as I could.

  She smiled gently from the bottom of the stairs.

  “We just have to learn to meet each other halfway, okay?”

  I nodded and descended the stairs. And met her halfway.

  Twelve

  WHEN I NEXT sat on the couch at my grandmother’s place I succumbed to the urge. The urge of asking her to show me her photos. I regretted it the moment I saw the look of glee on her face. Because of the way Nonna makes my mother feel, I hate making that woman happy.

  “My first house,” she said, pointing to a shack. “No matter how much I would clean it, it would always be dirty.”

  Don’t believe that. My grandmother, like most Europeans, has this obsession about dirt. She cleans her house at least five times a week.

  “Sometimes the snakes would come in, Jozzie. Oh, Jozzie, Jozzie, Jozzie, do you know what it is like to have a snake in your house?”

  “No, we have heaps of cockroaches, though.”

  She closed her eyes and put her hands together as if she was praying. “You do not know how much I hated Australia for the first year. No friends. No people who spoke the same language as me. Your nonno worked cutting the cane in another town, and sometimes I was on my own for many nights.”

  “Why didn’t you go with him?”

  “My job was to make a home for us. His was to make the money.”

  I turned the page, looking at photos of my grandfather.

  He never smiled. He was always standing straight and haughty. He was extremely tall for an Italian and very dark. Nonna was the opposite. She was smiling in the photo and her skin was white and clear. She’s right, although very vain. She had been a beautiful girl.

  I turned the page and looked at her, pointing to a photo.

  “Who’s the hunk?”

  She looked pensive and reached over to touch it.

  The person in the photo was of medium height with golden-brown hair. He was smiling broadly, leaning against a shovel, with no shirt on.

  “His name was Marcus Sandford.”

  “An Australian?” I screeched. “You knew an Australian hunk?”

  “He was my friend.”

  I looked at her curiously.

  “Who was he?”

  “My first Australian friend,” she sighed. “I had gone into the town one day. Straight to the post office. Oh, Jozzie, to get a letter from my family was like going to heaven. I would stand there in the middle of the post office and I would laugh at what my sister would tell me about my young brothers and family.

  “But this day, Jozzie, this day she wrote to me to tell me that my mama and papa were dead.”

  “The Mafia?”

  “Oh, Jozzie, of course not. It was the influenza. So in the middle of the post office I become hysterical. These poor Australians who are not used to the Italians do not know what to do. We Italians cry out loud, Jozzie. The Australians do not. So nobody moved. There I am on the floor pulling my hair out and suddenly a man picks me up off the floor and carries me out to the back.”

  “Oh my God. How romantic.”

  It was funny watching her talk about this man. Her face softened and I wondered what he’d really meant to her.

  “He spoke to me. I spoke to him. Neither of us understood each other, but he was a comfort to me at the worst time of my life and I will remember him for the rest of my life. Nonno was away at the time, so Marcus took me home. He visited me a lot after that. He would bring me stuff from the town when I couldn’t go myself.

  “Nuting wrong with that, Jozzie.”

  “Did I say there was?”

  “He would help me wit the garden and then he would help me wit my English. Oh, but when your nonno came home it stopped, Jozzie. He was a very jealous man. He said it was wrong that this man would come to visit a married woman. He even trampled the garden,” she whispered to me.

  I realized then that my grandmother was still a bit scared of Nonno Francesco even though he’d been dead for most of my life.

  “It was his garden, he insisted, and only he would tend to it. Anyway, over the next year a few more Italians moved in around the place and I began to have company. Sometimes the company was good. Sometimes bad. But I began to accept the fact that I was never going to go home to Sicily and this country was now my home, so I worked in my garden and I made my house into a home. Sometimes I would have people over and we would speak in Sicilian and I would feel as if I was back home again, Jozzie.” She closed her eyes and smiled.

  “I was happy, except people would talk because I wasn’t having babies. Why? they would ask. What is wrong with you, Katia Alibrandi? What are you waiting for? That December, Francesco and I came
home after the canecutters’ Christmas party and sitting on my doorstep was my sister Patrizia, six months pregnant. My little Patrizia with a husband. I was in shock.

  “They had managed to get to Australia even though there was a war and they were going to live in Australia forever. Oh, Jozzie, your Zio Ricardo was so handsome. Just like Roberto. He was such a good husband. Still is. My sister was so lucky.”

  “I know. I always wondered what Zio Ricardo would have been like when he was young. I mean, he’s so strong and so good. Men like him just don’t seem to be around these days.”

  “Those times,” she sighed. “They were not the good old days, Jozzie. Not the nineteen-thirties and forties. There was war and there was ignorance. People died in childbirth. If you were sick you could not just go to the doctor and ask him for pills. Sometimes there was no doctor, and if there was, he did not understand what was wrong wit you. Your Zia Patrizia had a terrible pregnancy and sometimes there we were, two young women, alone in the bush.”

  She shook her head in distress and turned the page, beginning a story on the Russo-Saleno wedding feud.

  I didn’t listen to it. I just sat there glad that I live in these times. I get depressed hearing Nonna talk. She remembers a lot in fondness, but just the feeling that nobody seemed to be around most of the time is frightening. Living just outside the city means that there are people constantly surrounding me. I don’t think I could ever handle the quiet world she lived in. I don’t think I could ever handle the silence of the bush in North Queensland. Or of the country. Especially the silence of the people.

  I hope I never have to live in a country where I can’t communicate with my neighbor.

  Thirteen

  THE REFLECTION IN the mirror was exceptional. I could have been a model for Hot Pants. Except that when I finally put my glasses on, reality set in. Hot Pants would have to come later.

  I poked my head out of the bathroom and watched Mama sew the hem of my uniform, and with a deep breath I walked into the living room.

  “Did I tell you about his speech on voting?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, without looking up.

  “And did I also tell you that Jacob Coote is school captain of Cook?”

  “’Bout a hundred times.”

  “Oh.”