Love and War by Sian James

suppose.

    Alfredo arrives at about nine o’clock. He’s small and wiry, his skin dark and shiny as acorns, his dark hair turning grey: an attractive man, lively as a terrier.
    My mother is blushing as she introduces us.
    He says I am bellissima . Then he says, I think, that he knew I would be. And my mother blushes again.
    I’ve been upstairs to my old bedroom and found an English/Italian dictionary which we’re soon passing back and fore to one another. Alfredo seems delighted by this new and more exact way of communication.
    I ask him whether he has children. He has three sons, he says, and my mama, three daughters. He can hardly believe it when I tell him there’s only me; he felt sure my mother had held up three fingers when he’d questioned her. I try to tell him that one daughter is worth three sons but he fails to understand me.
    ‘Don’t try to be clever, Rhian,’ my mother says sharply. ‘Why must you always try to be clever? Talk slowly, and don’t put on that English accent either.’
    Chastened – and indeed subdued – I have to sit and listen to her giving him a list of my shortcomings; in particular, pride, waywardness and stubbornness.
    Then he, pointing to the occasional word in the dictionary, says I must not have care, because he knows I am gentle, true and radiant, as my mama has told him already much times. Then, suddenly, he understands my earlier weak attempt at a joke and laughs rather a lot.
    Then he takes out the snapshot of the large tomb with angel, and yes, it is the grave of his beloved wife, who was as beautiful and virtuous as my mama, though not alike in outward, except regarding gait and industry.
    After that, I leave the talking to him and my mother. Leaning back in my chair, I let their simple, halting sentences wash over me and even without following the words, recognise their grave commitment, and recognise also that there is nothing I can say or do which could cancel it.
    There is absolutely nothing I can do. The tension slips away from my shoulders as I accept this fact. My mother has always, quietly and steadfastly, gone about doing exactly what she’s decided on, how could I have considered myself capable of influencing her in any way?
    ‘Your girl is happy, yes?’ Alfredo says, noticing, I suppose, my change of mood. I rearrange my face, careful not to agree too readily. After all, I’m not happy, only a little less unhappy.
    All the same, I can’t help liking him. He seems so lively, trying so hard to communicate and understand. And now that he and I are both silent, I’m aware of something else too; a quiet dogged strength, very like my mother’s, very like my father’s; perhaps the strength of all small farmers struggling against nature, but taking a certain pleasure both in the struggle and the occasional victory.
    ‘My father was a poet... una poeta .’ The word comes to me from my one term of Italian.
    ‘Ah, yes,’ he says. ‘Is good, poetry and music is good for peoples.’
    ‘And religion,’ my mother adds, rather sternly. ‘Don’t forget religion, whatever you do.’ She turns to me. ‘By the way, Rhian, Fredo is very worried because I haven’t got a picture of the Virgin Mary on the mantlepiece and I don’t want him to think I’m a heathen, do I?’
    ‘I’ll get one for you. I’ll bring it with me next time I come.’
    ‘It’s only for his sake, of course.’
    ‘Of course.’
    My mother cooks him liver and bacon and fried potatoes which he eats very quickly and delicately. And then he smiles a lot at both of us, shakes our hands and leaves.
    ‘He never stays later than half past ten,’ my mother says. ‘He knows I need my sleep, and so, of course, does he. He won’t be back at that camp until well gone eleven as it is, and he’s got to be up at six.’

Six

    THE POST VAN IS EARLY and gets me to school in time. In spite of this piece of luck, I feel worried and rushed all the morning; with so much on my mind, I slept badly last