Текст книги "Saving Francesca"

A real Wordsworth, the one who made that up!

The girls stand around pretending to warm up. We’ve never been a team before. We don’t have a chant and we’ve barely spoken in front of these boys, let alone sung. A warning bell is rung by Justine Kalinsky, who is in her element, because she has a role to play for once in this school. I look around and see Luca, who holds up a hand. I give him a smile, and the whistle blows and a cheer goes up.

This feeling comes over me. A positive one for once. A sense of accomplishment and, I hate to say it, pride. The girls are happy, the guys are accommodating, and for a moment I get a feeling that everything’s going to be just fine.

I am a success at last.

We get annihilated. There is no mercy. The word “friendly” is never used in the same context again. “Friendly,” according to The Australian Little Oxford Dictionary, means “acting or disposed to act as friend.” The word “act” is very apt. The girls glare at me. They need to put a face to their misery and I’m it. From then on, whenever someone uses the words “the basketball game,” there is no question which one they are referring to.

This is the short version: They play like it’s the Olympics and their country’s honor depends on it. If we even dare to try to adjust our gym pants, we get wolf-whistled. There are nosebleeds, fractured fingers, and hair pulling. It’s pretty full-on, and although I’m tall, I feel as if I’ve been tossed around the whole game. I end up on my bum so many times that I’m convinced I’ve broken a bone there.

At one point, I end up underneath a heap of bodies in a last-minute rumble, clutching the ball to my stomach, not wanting to let go of it for all the money in the world. It’s there, in that dark huddle of sweat and testosterone and hot breath and heaving breasts and erections, that I get the clearest of pictures. Because somehow I find myself straddled by William Trombal and I see the gleam of something in his face as he pulls the ball out of my hands. Not lust. Not adrenaline. It’s something much more sinister. It’s revenge, and I begin to understand the truth. That it all would have turned out very differently if Trotsky had written Anna Karenina .

Later, I sit in the gym alone. Not exactly pondering the game, because it’s not worth it. Just having my own time-out; a bit of self-pity here, a bit of self-loathing there. There are few places in this school to take a breather without the whole world watching.

William Trombal walks in to collect some of the sports gear. He’s cheerful, for once, whistling to himself. When he grabs the stuff, he walks over, knowing he can’t ignore me.

“Good game,” he says. “We should do it again sometime.”

I look at him and don’t answer. There are no comebacks. What am I going to say? “Yes, it was a great game. Put me through it again. Anytime you want.” So silence is my only weapon.

“Hope there’s no hard feelings because of the winning margin.”

“Can I have our list back?” I ask.

“List?”

“The one with all our requests. Tampons? Girls’ sports? Respect? That list.”

“You’re taking this personally, I can tell.”

“And you didn’t?”

I pick up my bag and begin to walk away.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks.

“Great talking to you. We should do it again sometime,” I say without turning back.

My dad takes Luca and me to Bar Italia in Leichhardt. We almost get Mia out the door, but by the time we’re leaving, she’s already gone back to her bedroom, leaving the three of us with no desire for anything. We go anyway, pretending that it’s no big deal. Pretending that it’s normal for my dad, Luca, and me to go for gelato on our own. But it’s not normal. Nothing about our lives, at the moment, is normal.

It’s difficult sitting there without people you know coming up to say “Hi!” every once in a while.

“How’s Mia?” they ask good-naturedly. “You guys keeping her busy as usual?”

The three of us have smiles plastered on our faces as we nod with enthusiasm.

“You know Mia,” Dad jokes, “if she’s not doing a hundred things at once she’s not happy.”

We feel like criminals. Liars. When we get a moment to ourselves, we try to speak about it.

“Is she getting better?” Luca asks.

“It’s not that easy,” Dad says.

“Is it because she does everything?” I ask.

“No.”

“Is it our—”

“No,” he says harshly. “No,” he repeats gently. “Everything’s going to be fine. She’ll be back at work soon. Let’s just keep the house clean.”

Oh yeah, I want to say, because a clean house will result in peace inthe Middle East as well.

Later, my cousin Angelina comes over. She’s shrewd, and I get an inkling that the family has been talking about what’s happening with my mum and has sent her over on some kind of surveillance mission. Relatives sometimes call Angelina mini-Mia because they have the same fiery personality, although my mum’s her aunt by marriage only. Despite the ten-year difference, they get on fantastically. They’re brutally honest and don’t take shit from anyone. Angelina’s getting married later this year. Angus, her fiancé, is probably one of the most uncomplicated guys I’ve ever come across, a bit like my dad. Her brothers used to say they’d pity the guy she’d end up with because he’d need to be a saint, but that’s because my cousins think they know everything and have their wives convinced of that as well. It’s incredible to witness how clueless they actually are.

Angelina’s in with my mum for ages and I want it to be like the days when Angelina, Mia, and I would have our secret women’s business coffees. I’ve never been left out of their conversations, not even when they talk about sex (although when my mum talks about her sex life with my dad, I feel like being sick). Tonight, I’m excluded and I try to piece things together from a distance, but I haven’t got enough to go on.

When Angelina comes out, she kisses my cheek.

“Ring me about the bridesmaid dresses,” she says, referring to her upcoming wedding and my role in it.

“What did you talk about?”

“I’ll tell you about this later, Frankie. I promise you.”

“Why not now, Angelina? My dad keeps on telling the University she’s got the flu, but she hasn’t.”

She looks at me but doesn’t speak for a moment, which is rare for Angelina.

“It’s a bit of a breakdown. She just needs time out, you know?”

I shake my head. A bit down. A bit of a breakdown. A bit of bullshit. There are no “bits” to this. There are large chunks. Of information that everyone is keeping from Luca and me.

Angelina speaks to my dad outside for a while. Neighborhood Watch, across the road, are out there, of course, and I sit at the window watching them. How dare they be so happy. I block them out and decide to ring up Michaela from Stella’s because if anyone’s going to be there for me, she will be. Her mother answers the phone.

“It’s Francesca.”

“Who?”

“Francesca. Francesca Spinelli.”

There is a silence and I realize that she doesn’t know who I am even though I was at school with her daughter for four years.

“From Stella’s,” I mumble.

“Oh. How are you? Michaela’s not here. She’s out with her friends.”

I thank her and hang up the phone and I feel like crap. I don’t remember the last time anyone used my name, except for Ms. Quinn. I don’t remember the last time anyone looked me in the eye to speak to me. I’m frightened to look at myself in the mirror because maybe nothing’s there.

I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I’m sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and nonthreatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, “Frankie, you’re silly, you’re lazy, you’re talented, you’re passionate, you’re restrained, you’re blossoming, you’re contrary.”

I want to be an adjective again.

But I’m a noun.

A nothing. A nobody. A no one.

chapter 6

LUCA AND I are late again and, as usual, we have to face William Trombal. Yet another role of the House leaders is to stand in the foyer and record the names of those in their House who are late. From the look on William Trombal’s face each morning, I can tell it’s his least favorite job.

He asks me my name for the fourth time this week. He knows I know he knows it, but he insists on this charade.

“Katarina Esperante,” I tell him.

Luca looks from me to him and then back again as if I’ve gone insane.

William Trombal glances up from the late book in his hands. “That’s not your name.”

I don’t answer and he looks at Luca and rolls his eyes.

“Luca Spinelli,” Luca says politely, “and she’s …”

I give him the Spinelli death stare.

“… she’s my sister.”

William Trombal gives in and writes in my name. “You’ve been late four times this week,” he says, stating the obvious.

I can sense Luca smiling politely next to me. He wants everyone to be happy and hates any kind of conflict. I pull him away and we walk down the stairs that lead to the quadrangle.

“You’re not to talk to that guy,” I tell him.

“He looks after Year Five, Katarina.”

“What does that make him? God?”

He rolls his eyes. I pinch him and he pinches me back. That’s how we do the affection thing in public.

For the rest of the day, I feel out of it. Not that I’ve ever felt into it around here. It’s like I lose track of time. One minute I’m in English and when I next open my eyes I’m in legal studies, but I don’t remember how I got there. On the page in front of me I’ve written stuff down, but I can’t remember holding the pen. I want to rest my head on the desk and just sleep, and for most of the day I kind of do. I can tell the teachers don’t like me. I remember the way they used to look at the apathetic girls at St. Stella’s. I think teachers can even handle the troublemakers, but they hate the slackers and that’s how they see me.

“Just ask me how I’m feeling,” I want to say. “Just ask and I may tell you.”

But no one does.

At lunchtime, I feel Justine Kalinsky watching me and when I look at her, she smiles, and I walk away and hide out in the toilets. Not the greatest place to spend forty minutes, but I just can’t deal with Tara Finke and Justine Kalinsky today. I just want to have a rest from all of that. I just want to lie down and not get up.

After ten minutes, I’ve had enough and I walk out of the toilets and across the courtyard and am beckoned over by the group who sit against the wall. These guys are European, and I know it’s time to do the cultural-bond thing. Sometimes they nod at me. A you-and-me-are-the-same nod. I wonder if they ever nod at William Trombal.

“You Italian?” they ask.

I nod.

They pat the space next to them and I make myself comfortable.

“Portuguese,” I’m told by the guy who called me over. His name is Javier, pronounced “Havier,” and every time one of the teachers pronounces his name with a J in class, there’s a booing sound.

“She’s Italian,” Javier tells one of the guys who joins them from the canteen.

“Third in the World Cup ranking,” the guy says.

“Behind Brazil,” another pipes up

“What’s your team?” Javier asks.

It’s a soccer thing. I think of Luca’s bedroom. “Inter Milan.”

Approval. Good choice.

The others are Diego, Tiago, and Travis, who they call a wannabe wog.

“You shy, Francesca?” Javier asks me later on.

I shake my head. “Not really.” I’m just sad, I want to say. And I’m lonely.

When Javier speaks, he uses his middle fingers to point down, as if he’s singing some hip-hop song. It’s like the spirit of some rap singer has taken over his body.

“I like you, Francesca. I like the way you treat your brother. Like he’s your friend, and that’s why I’m telling you this. Guys don’t like chicks who are down all the time.”

I thank him for the advice. I’ll make a point of telling my mum that tonight. I’ll say, “Mum, guys don’t go for sad chicks and you’re making me incredibly sad and because of that you’re curtailing my social life, so could you please get out of bed.”

And then she’ll get out of bed and we’ll live happily ever after.

They call out to a guy on the basketball courts. I recognize him from my biology class. He’s got a massive smile with big white teeth.

“Shaheen, what’s happening?” Javier asks him.

“Did you see that shot? Did ya? Huh?” Shaheen asks.

“You’re a legend, Shaheen.”

“Lebs rule!”

Shaheen says that about five times a day.

“Where, mate? Where do the Lebs rule? How are they doing in soccer? Did they rule in the Olympics? How about tennis? Where’s the Davis Cup team from Lebanon, Shaheen? Lobbing a few balls in Beirut?”

The bantering is good-natured.

“What do you reckon, Francesca?” Javier asks me. “Do Lebs rule?”

I look at Shaheen, who’s grinning. I can’t help grinning back. “My school captain last year was a Leb. So I guess she ruled.”

Shaheen shakes my hand.

Suddenly I’m a girl with attitude.

Attitude is everything with these guys. I have no chance of being their goddess because Eva Rodriguez is. She’s upbeat and positive. But somehow I’m allowed to be part of them, based purely on the fact that my grandparents and theirs belong to a minority. I’m back in complacency land and I’m loving it.

They give me advice. Keep away from the SAS, they tell me. They’re the guys who sit on the quadrangle stairs who have an obsession with the military. On non-uniform days they come to school wearing camouflage.

The bell rings and Shaheen walks me up to class and we sit together and he gives me a rundown on his hero, Tupac.

“He’s not really dead,” he tells me.

I have no idea who he’s talking about, but I find the whole conspiracy theory surrounding a supposedly dead rapper more intriguing than biology.

And somehow, yet again, I’ve managed to get through another day.

My dad arrives home and goes straight to their room to see how she is. At the moment, my dad can only be Mia’s husband, not Francesca and Luca’s father.

Luca looks at me. “Do you think Mummy speaks to Papa at night?”

I don’t know what to say to him.

“Because it’s okay if she can’t speak to us, but Papa would be so sad if she didn’t speak to him.”

“It’s not as if she doesn’t want to speak to us,” I explain.

“It’s just that Papa likes speaking to Mummy,” he says, almost in tears. “He always wants to speak to her. Sometimes more than he wants to speak to us, so if she doesn’t speak to him …”

Being Mia’s husband has always been my dad’s priority, even at the best of times, so now I feel as if we’re orphans.

“Do you want to do your homework on my bed?” I ask.

He nods. I know he’ll fall asleep there and I let him.

Later, I lie down next to him while he sleeps with Pinocchio snug up against him. Squashed up on the end of the bed, I try to think back to the day before my mum didn’t get out of bed. What was the last thing she said to us? What clues did she leave that we didn’t respond to? We own all this, and while we’re owning this ugly sickness that turns off the lights in a person’s head, those around us who think they know us best observe and comment.

I start wondering how the rest of the world sees us, and this is what I’m sure of.

They look at us as if we’re guilty. My dad, Luca, and I have become the villains. I know what they’re thinking. How could someone as lively and passionate as Mia feel this way? It’s her family, they whisper in my head. They’ve sucked the life out of her. All three of them. They see my father for who he is out there in the real world and not the person he is in our home. They see him as the guy who rode around on my Malvern Star bike once and broke his arm, or the husband at Mia’s university dinner parties who doesn’t say much. They don’t know the real him. Mia might be responsible for daily discipline, but if she wants to scare us, it’s my dad who’s in charge. That he doesn’t believe in small talk and won’t say much is because he’s bored by people who talk crap. He can make Mia laugh when she’s in the most stressed of moods. He can fix anything that’s broken in our house and can pull apart a car engine and put it back together again and make it work. That’s what people don’t see, and the fact that he doesn’t care what they think calms me down at the worst of times.

Then I picture the way they see me. Have you seen the eldest? I can hear them ask. She’s a dead loss. Has no idea what she wants to do with her life. She’s so insipid, she’s almost invisible. Her closest friend’s mother didn’t even know who she was.

What about the son? He still sleeps with his sister and he’s ten years old. No wonder Mia’s given up.

I do the deals-with-God thing. Make her better … make us all better and I’ll change the world for you.

But God doesn’t talk to me. It’s because every night I lie here with music in my ears and I say my prayers and fall asleep in the middle of them. He only talks to people like Mia. People he thinks are worth it. Because they have passion. They have something. I have nothing. I’m … Keep awake, Francesca. Keep awake and start to pray.

I’m a waste of space.

I am …

I …

My dad does the only thing he knows how to do this morning. He makes us eggs for breakfast.

“We don’t like eggs, Papa,” I finally tell him, because I think deep down I’m a bit pissed-off with him. Why can’t he fix things up? “We never have.”

He looks from Luca to me and then hurls the eggs against the stainless steel.

I watch the design they make as they run down the splashboard, and then he’s crying. My dad is crying and Luca is hugging him from behind, saying, “I’ll eat the eggs, Daddy, I’ll eat the eggs,” and he’s crying too and I can’t bear watching them. All I want to do is scream out “What’s happening?” over and over again because ten days ago my mum didn’t get out of bed. No visible symptoms, no medicine, no doctors. My dad says she’s a bit down and my cousin says it’s a bit of a breakdown. I’ve looked up the word “breakdown” because I am desperate for any clue: “collapse, failure of health or power, analysis of cost.” None of the definitions make sense to me. A breakdown of what, I’m not sure. But she doesn’t eat, that I know.

It has almost become an obsession. Every morning I study the fridge and pantry to see what’s there, and every afternoon I study them again to see if something’s missing. But nothing is. There are no plates in the sink, no food wrappers in the garbage. No evidence of papers being marked or of the phone being answered. Nothing. Nothing makes sense. My mother won’t get out of bed, and it’s not that I don’t know who she is anymore.

It’s that I don’t know who I am.

I stand in front of William Trombal for the fifth time this week. Luca tries to avoid his eyes. I don’t know what we look like to him, but he doesn’t ask our names. He just looks at us and for a moment I see sympathy, and I hate him for it.

No sermons today.

Even the prince of punishment doesn’t think we’re worth talking to.

chapter 7

TODAY THE GRANDMOTHERS step in. Mia’s been in bed for two weeks, and decisions about us are made. Luca goes to Zia Teresa’s and I go to Nonna Anna’s, and Nonna Celia moves into our house. Before I leave, I hear Nonna Celia and my dad talking. Nonna Celia wants to take Mia to her own doctor, but my dad says no. He always goes on about how Nonna Celia’s doctor hands out prescription drugs to avoid dealing with the real issues. My dad tells her that everything’s going to be okay, and it comforts me to hear that reassurance.

Luca sits on my bed as I pack away a few of my things. He looks just like a stereotypical little soccer freak, ball in his hand and the Inter Milan jersey dwarfing his skinny frame.

“What’s happening?” he asks in a voice that doesn’t sound like his anymore.

“Everything’s going to be fine. You always have fun at Zia Teresa’s.”

What I hate about this most is that no one gets how we’re feeling. No one asks us if we want to be separated. They just presume that Luca will want to be with his cousins and I’ll want peace and quiet.

He lies down next to me and we hold on to each other tight. I can’t tell horror brother-and-sister stories about Luca and me. We’re crazy about each other, and our arguments are limited to who gets control of the TV remote between 7:00 and 7:30 p.m.

Life at my grandparents’ is a different story. Nonna Anna and Nonno Salvo are television fanatics, especially the game shows. If it’s not Wheel of Fortune, it’s The New Price Is Right or Sale of the Century. They have absolutely no idea what the questions asked are, but they are excited by the process and the colored lights and the money symbols flashing up at different intervals.

Then there’s the news. The 5:00 p.m. news on Channel Ten (a difficult time for them because it clashes with The New Price Is Right), the 6:00 p.m. news on Channel Nine, the 7:00 p.m. national news, the Italian news on the Italian radio station, and if I stay awake long enough I get to watch the 10:30 p.m. Lateline on Public Broadcasting. It’s a very frustrating process because they get most of it wrong. Nonno Salvo calls out obscenities at the man whose image appears behind the newscaster’s head as she tells us the top story of the night. Nonno explains to me that the bastard pictured is a war criminal who is responsible for the deaths of a village of men in Bosnia. In actual fact, it’s Rupert Murdoch, but I don’t try to explain.

Tonight, we watch a cop show where someone gets shot dead. Nonno Salvo reassures me that the person’s not really dead. It’s just an actor. Then my nonna tells him that of course I know that.

“She has the mouth of a viper,” he tells me, twisting his bottom lip with his finger to further illustrate the point.

Ever since I can remember, my nonno and nonna have had these arguments. This one lasts a whole twenty-two minutes. It has to end because Who Wants to Be a Millionaire is just about to start and no talking is allowed during that. But I suppose they love each other to death. Every year at my nonna’s annual surprise birthday party, where she pretends she has no idea that we’re all huddled inside her kitchen, although the fifteen cars parked outside would be a certain giveaway, we go berserk when photos are taken and Nonno tries to kiss her and she acts coy. When he gets to lock lips for more than ten seconds, we scream with delight. And I always look at my mum and dad, his arms around her from behind, leaning his chin on her head, and it makes me feel very lucky.

Later, Nonna Anna tucks me into bed and smothers my forehead with kisses before she starts putting the clothes I’ve thrown around onto coat hangers. She’s in seventh heaven. Stealing one of Mia’s children away from her is like a dream come true. My dad stopped belonging to her when my mum came along. I think my father tends to forget anyone else is around when Mia enters the room. My grandmother’s disapproval of the way Mia runs the household is very vocal. I shouldn’t walk around naked in front of my brother, for example, and nor should my mother. Once in a while my father will make the trip from the bathroom to his bedroom naked, and I can’t say it’s an attractive picture, but it hasn’t traumatized me. It’s unnatural, my nonna Anna will say. Why can’t we be self-conscious like normal people? she asks.

I’ve never really been embarrassed by much. I just couldn’t be bothered doing things, that’s all, an aspect of me that Mia can’t cope with. Sometimes I think I do it even more just so she won’t win. At this moment, though, I’m willing to give in. To do anything to make her better.

Nonna Anna gives me one more kiss and turns off my bed lamp.

“Tutto a posto,” she says, shutting the closet door. Everything inits place.

But my family is split into three, and no one is in their place.