A Letter From Italy by Pamela Hart

Author:Pamela Hart [HART, PAMELA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Published: 2017-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

20

‘Osso bucco,’ Nonna Rosa announced, hefting two large beef shins onto the kitchen bench. ‘A good autumn dish.’

She bent down to pull out a long meat saw, grunting a little as she stood up. For a moment, bent over, she looked her age, but standing again she shed twenty years.

‘Onions, celery, carrots, garlic,’ she added, gesturing to Rebecca to begin chopping.

Obediently, Rebecca took the big knife and began to cut up stalks of celery, stringing them first and then slicing them into half-moons. The sharp, cleansing scent was pleasant, reminding her of summer afternoons with her father in the vegetable patch at the back of their garden. They’d had a man for the heavy work, the mowing and hoeing, but her father had done all the planting and manuring. She had loved, as a child, to go with him, big wicker basket in hand, to see what was ripe and ready for the kitchen. To eat tomatoes fresh from the vine, broad beans spilled out from warm furry pods, carrots pulled up and brushed off. And celery, snapped from the head after her father had cut it, and crunched immediately.

‘So, you went to Mass this morning?’ Nonna Rosa asked, sawing industriously. They spoke only in Italian now; there were words, occasionally, that Rebecca didn’t understand, but for everyday purposes they were few and far between.

‘No,’ Rebecca said, puzzled. Why would she go to Mass on a Monday? Except maybe to pray never again to be accosted as she had been yesterday. She shivered with the memory.

The saw stopped its harsh scraping for a moment, and then started again.

‘I thought maybe you would pray for your husband. It’s the day of San Andrea today.’ As if explaining to a child, she added, ‘He is patron saint of fishermen. And your husband, he left with fishermen.’

Yes, he had left with fishermen who were also smugglers. Rebecca’s stomach jolted. She dragged in a great breath of air against a tight throat; this fear for Jack came up sometimes, but she could control it.

‘I doubt Saint Andrew would look after those particular fishermen.’

Nonna Rosa smiled sourly and shrugged. ‘You English are strange.’

She’d given up explaining that she wasn’t English. In some ways, Nonna Rosa was right; her upbringing had been as English as her parents could make it. They were part of Empire, and they never forgot it.

‘Have you heard … anything?’ It went against the grain to ask. Jack should have written to her, or sent word.

‘Nothing,’ Nonna Rosa said. ‘But they haven’t been back in port since he left.’

So, no chance for a letter to arrive. It wasn’t Jack’s fault, and it was silly to be disappointed that she couldn’t blame him. Childish.

‘You don’t worry much. Of course, you don’t love him,’ Nonna Rosa acknowledged, as if trying to find an excuse for her.

This time the jolt went all through her, and it was anger.

‘How dare you?’ she said. She put the knife down deliberately. She should not stick it into Nonna Rosa’s face, she really shouldn’t.

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