Fiammetta

Fiammetta watched her father. He stood by the window, saying nothing, bottle of beer in his hand, deep patches of sweat under each arm. The table was set, a basket of bread in the middle, forks and spoons at regular intervals. Rosalia, her mother, tossed some salt into the boiling water. Her two younger brothers fidgeted and poked each other. Her older brother Paolo stood near the sink, turning the handle of the cheese grater. She could see his clenched jaw. His body always stiffened when their father, Gianni, entered the room.

Gianni worked with a road gang, operating heavy machinery in forty-degree heat. The gang flattened the red soil and laid the bitumen and swallowed the dust. There was no shade out there – red dirt for miles and saltbush no higher than a man’s knee. But there would be a highway soon, leading to the coast and the iron smelters. Paolo told Fiammetta as soon as that highway was open he was going.

Fiammetta held the baby, Lina, on her lap. The baby fussed and whined; bothering her gums with her fingers, and couldn’t be soothed with a hard tarali. Blisters of sweat covered her father’s forehead. The cheese grater slipped and fell into the sink with a clatter. Lina jerked her head and Fiammetta’s glass of water spilled down the front of her dress leaving a dark stain against her breasts. But she didn’t notice the shock of cold water or the fabric clinging to her, because she was watching her mother fall against the stove. Lina screamed. Gianni raised his fist again. Their mother put her hand out to steady herself and grabbed the saucepan full of tomato sauce. The sauce splashed in an arc across the kitchen floor. Fiammetta clutched Lina and ran. She could hear her brother Paolo shouting as she pounded away down the hall, her two younger brothers behind her. She couldn’t see her mother sitting on the floor surrounded by tomato sauce. Outside in the dusk the red earth faded and the pink streaked clouds disappeared into night. The children ran down the hill to the park.  They hid inside the clumps of agapanthus, the dark green straps of foliage shading their faces.

***

Fiammetta woke before dawn, she could smell Lina’s nappy and gently moved away. Her mother could do that job when she woke. She pulled on a sleeveless dress, slipped on her sandals, and walked out into the hall. She crept past her parents’ room and out the front door, closing it softly behind her. There was never any breakfast, or lunch for that matter.

In a few hours it would be hot, but the cool air of the early morning bathed her bare arms and legs. She crossed the buckled asphalt road to walk in the shade of the peppercorn trees. On this side of the road she could avoid the church where her mother made her go to see the dead relatives laid out before their funerals. It scared her when she was small, and it still scared her ten years later.

She walked quickly down the hill to the park, turning onto the concrete path and dodging the council sprinklers hurling streams of water onto the grass with a rhythmic clicking. As she watched the morning light catch the spray she didn’t notice a boy on a bike coming toward her. 

‘Hey Fi!’

She startled and looked up, then smiled.

‘Hi Davo.’

‘Goin’ down the vege shop, are ya?’

‘Yeah, gotta work today.’ She looked around to see if anyone was watching her talking to Davo. If her father knew he would stop her going out, except for work, and that was if he was in a good mood.

‘A bit early for school, isn’t it, or are you just real keen?’ she said, watching his skin turn pink at his throat and move up to his cheeks.

‘Nah, gotta do some chores for my Mum before school, get some milk and stuff,’ he said, looking over toward the tailing dump. ‘Goin’ swimming tonight?’

‘Maybe,’ Fiammetta said, ‘If it’s real hot. Anyway I’ve got to hurry now.’ She smiled at him again and set off on the path.

‘See ya,’ called Davo.

She knew he was watching as she walked away into the deep shade of the peppercorn trees.

***

For weeks all he could think of was Fiammetta. Her shiny black hair and black eyes, her slow smile. He sat in class, looking out the window as the heat of the afternoon induced lethargy in all the kids and teachers. He’d eaten an orange at lunchtime and the smell lingered on his hands. She used to be in his class, but her father sent her out to work at the beginning of the year. He only got to see her at the pool now.

The teacher drew a piece of chalk across the board and talked about lines into infinity. Davo glanced at the boy next him, slumped so low in his chair he could slip off any moment. He pictured Fiametta in her pale blue swimsuit, her golden skin covered in splashes. The way she bent over to sweep her hand through the water. The chalk line continued into infinity, and when she leaned forward her breasts pushed against the pale blue.

***

  Fiammetta reached the fruit and vegetable shop just as Domenic was opening up.

‘Metta, start stacking those apples at the front and then you can sweep up out the back, deliveries made a mess again, Holy Mother of Saints, you would think these people could deliver vegetables with no fuss, but no, they goin’ to break me that’s what.’

The heat of the day steadily climbed, bouncing off the footpath and into the shop. Customers came and went. Many people in the town grew their own vegetables and some fruit, but there was always someone who needed to buy. Fiametta liked to look at the colours stacked together, the mounds of brown potatoes, still with a dusting of red soil, piles of white onions and the Queensland Blue pumpkin at the back of the shop. Iceberg lettuce next to bunches of parsley and silverbeet. Burgundy beetroot, yellow bananas trucked in from Coffs Harbour, Granny Smiths and Navel oranges dazzling in lime green and orange. Her favourite job was to spray them all with water, the droplets clinging to the surface like glass tears.

Domenic always had a pencil behind his ear and a pad of paper in his hand on which he would add up the customers bill. He wore a leather apron and kept a sharp knife in a sheath at his waist for cutting off carrot greens or slicing a melon in two. He kept up a steady patter with the customers.

Fiammetta, only used to people in the Italian community, spoke shyly to the customers when she started. Soon she knew the regulars, knew what they were likely to buy and she worked fast, rarely making mistakes. Sometimes Australian kids would come in with their Mums and stare at Fiametta. Stare at the gold rings in her ears and her black hair. They’d whisper and giggle to each other. Fiametta knew what they were calling her. Their mothers’ would be over friendly or they would stare straight through her.     .

***

The school bell rang on the stroke of three twenty. Davo looked at his watch. After school he’d dawdle home with his mates, sometimes stopping for a frozen Sunnyboy. Then they’d meet on the corner and ride their bikes down to the pool. They’d fly down the road like a flock of ducks skimming the asphalt then splashing into the water, never slipping in quietly. They shouted and hooted and leaped, they jumped and bombed and somersaulted into the water, then surface and start smacking the water at each other laughing and chiacking until the pool man came and told them off. Settling down they’d look to see which girls were around, hoping secretly to see their favourites.

This afternoon Davo didn’t wait for Trev or Shane or the other blokes. He didn’t want to miss Fiammetta. All day he’d played her name over in his head, Fi-a-mmett-a, Fi-a-mmett-a. At the pool he wanted her to watch only him. He wanted to dive into the flashing blue of the pool and then swim, with his lungs bursting, to where she sat on the edge of the pool and emerge with a gasp at her feet. He wanted to see her surprise, to see her smile just for him through her black curls, that slow, all-the-time-in-the world smile.

***

‘Where are you going now?’ asked Gianna.

He’d come home from the road gang early to see his daughter rush in from work and then emerge from her bedroom with a towel around her neck.

‘Going to the pool.’

‘You spend too much time at that swimming pool, you stay home, help your mother.’

‘But Dad, it’s so hot and I-’

‘I don’t care how hot it is. Your place is at home with your Mother and little sister. Don’t think you can parade around the pool in your swimsuit while your mother makes your dinner.’

The smell of cooking celery and onion filled in the hallway. Fiammetta had half turned toward the front door, red towel around her neck. She raised her chin defiantly.

‘I’m going, I’ll help Mum when I get back’.

 She took a step toward the front door but as she reached for the handle her father grabbed her other arm and yanked her back. He pushed her against the wall and with the flat of his hand smacked her face. She fell to the floor gasping and holding her face. He stood over her but she didn’t move. Didn’t make a sound. She could hear him breathing heavily and then his footsteps leading away toward the kitchen.

Fiametta stood, her hand against the cool plaster of the wall. She reached for the door handle. A tightness in her chest and a burning cheek. Her father had taught her how to swim. Had held her up while she learned to kick, urging her on and nodding with approval when she finally swam to the edge on her own. She leaned her head against the door, knowing what would happen if she went to the pool now. There would be no work for the rest of the week, not until the worst of the bruising faded, and Domenic would say nothing. Nobody would.   

She swallowed the tightness that crept up to her throat. All the other girls would be at the pool, clustered in groups, talking and laughing and watching the boys. Fiammetta knew when she went to the pool and sat on the edge while the water shimmered and lapped at her feet, the boys would soon gather. They’d splash her with water hoping to make her squeal and look their way. And the water would land on the concrete and evaporate as soon as it hit the burning surface.

 She’d pretend not to watch while they jumped and dived and vied for her attention, until Davo would emerge like a seal near her feet. Then she would laugh, laugh because he was bolder than the rest, and because here, at the pool in her ice blue swimsuit, she was a queen. A queen with tumblers and acrobats all around her desperate to please.

Still holding her cheek where her father had hit her she opened the door carefully. She ran across the street to the shade of the peppercorn trees and looked back, but only for a moment. Then she ran down the hill past the church, running like she was never going back. She ran down the hill, her black hair flying, the red towel skimming along the surface of the footpath. Stumbling through the turnstiles she could see figures in the glare of the water. She tore off her dress in the change room and emerged onto the hot concrete, feeling her feet burning. She threw her towel onto a wooden bench, closed her eyes and dived into the shimmer. The cold water closed around her and she moved her arms then let herself float to the surface. Shaking and laughing she opened her eyes to see diamond droplets of water fly off her hair, catch the sunlight and fall back to crown her dark head.