The Last of the Bonegilla Girls Read online

  She knew Domenica would not make him a good wife. She’d known it from the first time they’d met, when Massimo had brought her home for dinner to meet the family.

  ‘This is my sister, Iliana,’ Massimo had said, clearing his throat.

  Iliana had held out her hand to shake Domenica’s, but Domenica had kept her arm resolutely at her side. She’d looked Iliana up and down, glanced at her work outfit and sighed. Iliana believed there was nothing wrong with her jacket and pencil skirt, with a ruffled white shirt underneath. It looked professional and neat. Her hair had been pulled back in a French twist and her make-up was artfully applied. She took great pride in being the professional face—if not the brains—of Agnoli and Son. She had to look respectful and professional.

  ‘You didn’t have time to change into something more appropriate to meet your future sister-in-law?’ Domenica asked, looking her over.

  ‘I’ve just got home from work.’

  ‘Work.’ Domenica sighed and slipped her arm through Massimo’s. She shrugged her shoulders and laid her head to rest on his arm, as if uttering that one word had exhausted her. She gazed up at him lovingly.

  Iliana noticed that Massimo wasn’t looking at her in quite the same way.

  ‘You poor thing. I can’t wait to make a home for Massimo and our children. That will be my blessed work.’

  ‘And we are very much looking forward to that day,’ Iliana’s mother said, before politely bestowing a kiss on each of Domenica’s cheeks.

  From that day forward, Iliana wished with all her strength that her brother wasn’t marrying Domenica.

  Iliana’s mother pushed a chopping board in her daughter’s direction. ‘Here, do the onions.’

  ‘Si, Mamma.’ Iliana sliced through the ends of the onion and bounced her sharp knife against the wooden board, her eyes watering and stinging, and she wondered how many more years she would have to sit at her family’s kitchen table helping her mother cook dinner for the boys.

  ‘It’s not long now, the wedding.’ Her mother’s knife slicked through sticks of celery and peeled bulbs of garlic.

  ‘No, it’s not long.’

  ‘She will be a good wife to Massimo.’

  Iliana stopped, putting her knife down. ‘Really, Mamma? How do you know?’

  ‘Ah, don’t be ridiculous with such a question.’

  ‘I really want to know. How do you know they’ll be happy?’ Iliana rested her hand on her mother’s, a silent plea for her to stop her work and talk to her daughter.

  Agata put her knife down on the chopping board. ‘She loves him, can’t you see that? She smiles at him. She hangs on to him like she wants to stop him from running away. I know she will make him happy. And that’s good, because Massimo …’ Agata’s voice trailed off. She lifted an arm and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her dress. ‘My Massimo. He has not been happy for a long time. Not since Cooma. Your father and I thought he would never find a wife so we are happy now for him. He is successful. Domenica will make him a good home and give him children. Give us grandchildren. A family needs grandchildren.’

  Iliana didn’t want to remind her mother that it was Giuseppe who had found Massimo a wife. His business associate only had to mention that he had a beautiful single daughter and the fathers had almost picked out the wedding ring and the reception venue before their children had even met. Iliana couldn’t shake the niggling doubt that Massimo had come reluctantly to the idea. If she truly believed her brother loved this girl, she wouldn’t have said a word. Once, he had looked at a woman as if he loved her. And that woman was Frances Burley, a long time ago, back in Cooma. She had never asked him about what had happened between them the night before Frances had left, and neither Massimo nor Frances had ever spoken of it. She had come to bed, after, and cried herself to sleep. Massimo didn’t even go to the bus station to say goodbye to her.

  It hadn’t been her business to tell her big brother what to do then, and it wasn’t her place to tell him what to do now.

  ‘I think you and Papà are looking forward to grandchildren,’ Iliana said.

  Agata sighed, exasperated. ‘Of course we are. Massimo is twenty-seven and you are twenty-five and nothing yet? People look at me in church and I know they think something is wrong with our family.’

  Iliana put down her knife. Surely it was only the onions making her cry. ‘Mamma, is there something wrong with me?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘No one wants to marry me. I will never find a husband.’ It was hard to admit the fear that she would never be loved, that she would never move out of her parents’ house, that she would never find someone who wanted to make love to her. Her body had ached for that intimate touch, the touch of a man’s lips on hers. An arm around her waist, pressed to the small of her back. And she wanted to have babies, too. As each year passed, Iliana could feel it all slipping through her fingers. Was she soon going to be too old to have children? Perhaps that was why, in her heart of hearts, she was so envious of Domenica. Domenica who was beautiful and so close to being the perfect Italian wife and mother. Her sister-in-law would have what Iliana desperately wanted: a husband, a home of her own, children. She was twenty-five years old now. An old maid.

  ‘My beautiful daughter. There is one man out there for you. I know it in my bones.’ Her mother crossed herself three times, as if invoking God might help speed the process.

  ‘Look at where we are and where we were when we came to Australia nine years ago. Nine years.’ Her mother shook her head. ‘We have had so much luck. We have a home here in Leichhardt, close to our church. A business that employs not just your father and your brother, but you, too. And if your little brothers were as interested in working as they are in playing that calcio, it would have been for them as well. Your father has worked hard to give his family all of this.’

  ‘You’ve worked hard too, Mamma.’

  Agata waved her daughter’s words away. ‘It has all been for our children. For you to have a better life than we did. You will have that life too, Iliana. A family. One day. Be patient.’

  Iliana fought a familiar tightness in her chest, a memory, a feeling of old arms around her, of the course black of her clothing. ‘I miss Nonna.’

  After all this time, at the mere mention of her own mother, Agata’s lips trembled. ‘My mamma. I miss her too. She didn’t want me to come to Australia with your father, you know. We didn’t know anything about Australia. She was scared. I changed my mind. I told your father I didn’t want to come. Your father and I had a big fight about it.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘I didn’t want to leave the village. My mother and my nonna begged me not to go. But it was what your father wanted. He wanted to provide for his family and there were no jobs in Italy. I gave up my family to come here to Australia, Iliana. That’s why, here, in Australia, making another family is important.’ Agata stopped, searched her daughter’s face. She reached across and cupped her chin. ‘But I want you to make the right kind of family. You should wait for a good man.’

  ‘You mean it, Mamma?’

  ‘I do. Wait for someone you really love. Massimo? I don’t know if he loves Domenica the way she loves him, but he is ready to settle down, to make a home of his own. Thank God for that. But does he love her?’ Agata shrugged.

  Iliana was so stunned at this honesty from her own mother that she sat, speechless, staring at the face that was so familiar to her. Her mother’s brown eyes shone with tears. Her olive skin was wrinkled now, creasing in the corners of her eyes and in the lines above her top lip. Her hair, black with strands of wiry grey, was pulled back in an efficient bun on top of her head. Her narrow shoulders were still so strong, her heart inside her chest bigger than Iliana had ever imagined.

  ‘Iliana, I want you to be married. I want you to know the joy of children and a family of your own. I want to see your grandchildren one day. But I know who really runs the business. I know who is there when Massimo is off playing socc
er and your father is at the club. Your father and Massimo have both had their heads turned by a beautiful girl from a good family.’ She winked. ‘And Massimo will find out soon enough if there is more to her than her long eyelashes.’

  Iliana laughed. To hear her own mother say something so subversive was a delight but a shock, too. ‘Mamma!’

  Agata waved her hands in the air and grinned through her laughter. ‘Wait until she has to put her hands in the sink every night and wash the dishes.’

  They continued working in silence, the smell of garlic and onion, basil and tomato sauce comforting and familiar. As she chopped, Iliana thought over what her mother had said. It was true about Massimo. He’d been drifting since they’d been in Cooma. He railed against injustice wherever he saw it, whoever meted it out. When they’d moved to Sydney, he’d found another cause to be angry about. He had met an old man at their church, St Fiacre’s, and when Massimo had discovered the man had been interned in Australia during World War Two, he had come home, furious. He’d pounded his fist on the kitchen table during dinner, startling the crockery.

  ‘He’s been here since 1928, Papà. How could Australia do that to him and all those men?’ he’d demanded. ‘I know why. They locked us up during the war and then they never trusted us, did they? We are Italians and Catholics and fascists for Mussolini, right? Enemies. And now they want us to be ashamed of what we are. Not me. I am not ashamed to be Italian or Catholic. The Australians … they want us to come and do all the dirty jobs, to work in the dirt and the heat and the cold, to dig underground for the Snowy, to grow their food and work in their factories. But they don’t really want us to be Australians.’

  ‘Massimo,’ Giuseppe had urged. ‘Calm down.’

  Her brother had pulled his lips together and fumed. He’d carried an anger inside him a long, long time.

  Iliana lifted her chopping board and swept the chopped onions into a large cast-iron pot her mother had positioned in the middle of the table. She’d brought it with her from Italy in the family’s wooden chest.

  ‘I hope Massimo is marrying Domenica because he loves her,’ Iliana said. ‘I will wear that bridesmaid’s dress and I will be happy for my brother.’

  ‘Good. And who knows?’ Agata smiled. ‘You might meet a nice man at the wedding. You will look bellissimo in your bridesmaid’s dress.’

  ‘Signorina.’

  Iliana looked up from her bomboniere on the table in front of her, the torn white mesh and single sugared almond remaining in its folds evidence that she’d eaten the other five already. She wasn’t hungry in the slightest, after five courses and three glasses of prosecco, but she was sitting all alone, having completed all her duties as fifth bridesmaid, watching numbers one, two, three and four twirling around the dance floor with their boyfriends or fiancés or complete strangers.

  A man was standing next to her. ‘Why is the most beautiful girl in the world sitting here all by herself and not dancing, huh?’

  He was very handsome. His dark hair was swept back fashionably, his suit modern and slim, but it was his eyes that caught hers. Smiling, sincere, honest.

  Iliana straightened her back, smoothed her hands down the apricot shantung of her bridesmaid’s dress and looked up at him. All those glasses of prosecco had given her some courage.

  ‘Who are you?’ She lifted her chin, daring.

  He slipped his hands behind his back, bowed. ‘My name is Vincenzo Gonelli. I know your father and your brother. I am a tiler. I worked on a house they built in Haberfield.’

  Iliana held a hand out over the arrangement of white roses to shake his. ‘Iliana.’ His grip was firm.

  ‘I know who you are.’ He smiled. He didn’t let go of her hand. ‘You look very beautiful tonight, bella. Would you like to dance?’

  Iliana pushed her chair back and stood. ‘Yes, I would, Vincenzo Gonelli.’

  Their first dance was the beginning of everything.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  ‘Hrónia pollá, Aphrodite!’

  The crowd of people milling in the backyard of Vasiliki and Joe’s house in Oakleigh cheered loud enough that the Greek music was drowned out for just a moment. There were so many people that Vasiliki had lost count. Her mother and father, her sisters Eleni and Constantina, their husbands and their children (one daughter, two sons), her husband Steve’s family and siblings, the Angelopoulos family, the Koutsameniotis family, the Georganases, three sets of neighbours and people from church. Enough guests to eat all the lamb slowly roasting on the spit by the shed and the trestle tables full of salads and desserts Vasiliki’s mother and her friends from church had spent two days making.

  But none of it seemed to impress her oldest daughter. Aphrodite threw her arms around her mother and hid her face in her skirt.

  ‘What’s the matter, Aphrodite?’

  She began to whimper. Vasiliki crouched down, her toes pushing into the fierce point of her stiletto heels, and stroked her daughter’s curls away from her face. ‘This is your birthday party. You’re supposed to have fun today. Six years old, already going to school. Can you imagine that? You’re such a big girl already.’

  Aphrodite sniffed and tears welled in her huge brown eyes. ‘All those people make me scared, Mummy.’

  Vasiliki huffed. ‘What are you talking about? You know everyone. You’ve seen them all a hundred times.’

  ‘I don’t want a party.’ Her little voice quavered. ‘I want to go to my room.’

  ‘What is wrong with her?’ Vasiliki’s mother had rushed over to investigate her granddaughter’s wilful behaviour, wiping her hands on the apron tucked around her waist. She lifted Aphrodite’s chin and searched her face for some sign of sickness or disease. ‘Ach, she won’t even give me a kiss hello on each cheek today.’ She shook a finger in her granddaughter’s face. Her Greek was harsh. ‘Aphrodite, don’t be a naughty girl. You must be nice.’

  Vasiliki turned her daughter away and slipped into the space between them. ‘Mamma. Don’t say that.’ Vasiliki slipped an arm around Aphrodite. ‘Please, give your yiayia a kiss.’ Aphrodite slowly pressed her lips to her grandmother’s cheeks. Dimitria huffed and headed back to the table, which was groaning with food.

  Without a word, Vasiliki slipped her hand in Aphrodite’s and took her away from the people and the noise. Up the back steps, inside the house, past the laundry and down the hallway to her own room. Her other daughters Elena and Stavroula were playing happily outside with the Georganas boys and little Euphemia—Effie—was tucked up in a blanket in her pram under the back veranda.

  At the door to her room, Aphrodite pulled free, ran across the pink rug and jumped onto her bed. Four of her teddy bears and her favourite rag doll bounced up and tumbled to the floor as if her bed were a trampoline. Aphrodite snuggled up in a foetal position and burrowed into her pillow. Vasiliki’s heart ached at the sight. She pulled the pink nylon bedspread from the end of the bed and covered her daughter’s legs.

  ‘You have a sleep.’ Vasiliki found a spot on the bed by her daughter’s side.

  ‘Thank you, Mummy.’

  Aphrodite’s English was perfect. She barely had an accent when she spoke. She sounded like all the other little Australian girls in her class and Vasiliki was proud of that. She always spoke English to her children. She wanted them to do well at school, and in this life in Australia, and they would only be held back if they couldn’t talk to the teacher or their friends. Everything was in English: their school, the radio, the television and, eventually, work. Steve felt the same way and the only Greek spoken in the house was between husband and wife when they didn’t want the girls to know what was being discussed: the business. His mother. Her mother.

  Vasiliki stroked Aphrodite’s hair, hoping it would soothe her daughter, watching as her eyes slowly closed. Soon, her chest was rising and falling in deep breaths. How was it possible that she was so different in personality to her three sisters? Elena and Stavroula were like their father: loud, playful and adventurous.
It was too early to know what Effie would be like, but she was already a terrible sleeper, up for hours on end, which made Vasiliki believe she might be cut from the same mould.

  Her firstborn was different and Vasiliki held on tight to the reason why. She had never told anyone about Aphrodite’s real father. She hadn’t needed to explain away her pregnancy. Her arranged marriage to Steve had been quick and, with some fudged dates from the doctor and a slight untruth about the baby being a few weeks early, everyone believed the lie that she had conceived her child on her wedding night.

  ‘How lucky we are!’ Her mother had been thrilled that a child was on the way so soon. Vasiliki had smiled and agreed that yes, she was blessed. Blessed to have this piece of Tom Burley with her forever.

  For long stretches of time, she would forget all about her secret. She had a busy life—four daughters and Steve’s thriving business—and she rarely had time for memories. But every now and then, like today, she allowed herself to think about Tom. As she stared at her daughter, taking in every detail of her perfect, olive-skinned face, her long, long eyelashes and her full lips, Vasiliki let her thoughts return to him and the daughter they shared. If she looked closely, Vasiliki could see him in Aphrodite. Her eyes were different to those of her sisters, a light caramel brown, not the almost-black depths the others shared. Aphrodite’s curls were tight ringlets at her neck, while her sisters had straight hair. And she seemed to not like parties, even though today’s was in her honour. The first child, the first grandchild, and she wanted to be alone in her room rather than out in the backyard opening her presents and playing games with the other children.

  Vasiliki understood. She knew it was wrong to have favourites, but oh, how she did. Her little Aphrodite would always be her most special child. Her gift from Tom. She relished this time, the simple peace of watching her daughter sleeping, the freedom of being able to look for Tom and seeing him there in her six-year-old’s face, for reminders of the love she had felt for her daughter’s father. Vasiliki didn’t know how it all worked, who or what or how it was decided what a child inherited from a mother and what was passed down from a father. Perhaps wrapped up in that mix were pieces of their grandparents, too. Vasiliki knew she didn’t look like her own mother, but put her next to a photo of her own yiayia back in Greece and the resemblance was striking. The same eyes, the same chin. Some things did run in families, she knew that to be true. And perhaps they skipped a generation every now and then.