Robyn Hogan

Del may have located her birth father

‘And how was the big date? Did you score?’ Del opened the conversation as they came to the breakfast table by the sea, prima colazione of bread and jam and juice already laid before them.

The Adriatic rolled in, spreading clear water over the nearby rocks, the returning rills rippling in the sunshine. The sky was deep blue and the breeze just enough. A ‘Pippa Passes’ morning dispelling Del’s darker thoughts of the night. It had been well after midnight, well after she had heard Barbara return, alone, before she had smoothed the day out, rationalised the mistaken identity episodes into just that and not something sinister. And fought back tears for Kevin. Self-pity was not her style. Now, this morning, she felt light and girlish.

‘The year’s at the spring,
And day’s at the morn;’

Del planted a soft kiss on Barbara’s cheek. ‘Hi.
The hill-side’s dew-pearled;
All’s right with the world!’

‘Aren’t you the bright one this morning?’

‘And why not?’ Del settled herself. ‘Was last night fun?’

‘Not bad. A pleasant enough evening.’ Barbara, smiling at Del’s exuberance, began slowly spreading jam on her bread, relieved that it was obvious Del had not minded being left alone. That she had not needed to be anxious on that score.

‘Sort of. He’s a nice man but a loser. What a loser!’

‘How come?’

‘Well, he was a prisoner of war in Australia. He picked oranges.’ Barbara made a gesture towards Del, ‘out your way somewhere,’ and chewed at her bread before continuing. ‘Fell in love with an Aussie girl. Been waiting for her ever since. End of story.’

Del’s body stiffened; she felt her feet go cold as if the ocean was chilling them. ‘But that’s nearly fifty years ago.’ To her own ears her voice seemed pitched too high but Barbara did not notice.

‘Exactly. All he wanted to talk about was this girl. As if he’d met her yesterday. You know, he was nineteen at the time. What a loser,’ she added, shaking her head in disbelief.

The bread had become dry in Del’s mouth; it hurt her throat as she forced herself to swallow it down. She drank some juice. Nineteen. It was most unlikely that the Aussie girl was her mother. Would she, Del, have the courage to talk to him about his experience, who he might remember besides his sweetheart? Who else was in his camp? She could surely string something together without arousing too much curiosity. That her Italian father could still be alive had crossed her mind but she expected an old man, late eighties, dribbling and toothless and maybe smelling of stale urine. This man was only five or six years older than Kevin. And sufficiently good looking to attract Barbara’s attention. Del had not really looked at him yesterday. Indeed, she realised now, Barbara, with the aplomb of the predator, had in fact monopolised him immediately, put herself between the man and her woman friend. Del was not smiling now, as she recalled Barb’s attitude from the moment he had come to stand by their table. Warhorse mode, she thought. Once, in London, taking a short cut through the Park behind the barracks she and Kevin had come upon a passing out parade, the salute being taken by some minor royal, and sat in the bleachers watching. The lead horse was old, grey-white or yellowing-grey, and had nag napped through most of the ceremony. But when the band struck up, it would, with eyes shut, head down, paw the ground once or twice, finding the beat, before its head would come up and it would march off, stepping in time, leading the next formation. That was Barbara.

The cheery waiter arrived with coffee; long black for Del, frothing cappuccino for Barbara. Del gulped at the hot liquid, braced herself to respond. ‘Perhaps just seeing us triggered the memory for him.’

‘Mmm. Possible. But I don’t think so. He was quite obsessive.’ Barbara spooned froth off her coffee and licked at it. ‘Expected her to join him here. A break down in communication if ever there was one.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Just tell me: why would any Aussie girl in the immediate post war period agree to uproot herself and live in a country Australia had been at war with?’

‘For true love’s sake?’

‘Even true love is not that foolish.’

‘Enough Japanese left their homeland. War brides. And Vietnamese, too.’

‘Not a valid argument. They were leaving a war torn country for undamaged North America or Australia.’

‘Point taken.’

‘And this girl had two children, for God’s sake! She would not have been serious. He just got the wrong end of the stick.’

‘Hardly a girl if she had two children.’ Del kept her head down as she spoke; the tale had an uncanny truth about it that was worrying her. ‘Perhaps she was a “cradle-snatcher”.’ Her head jerked up; she wished she had not said that. Suddenly, tumbling and unpleasant by-gone images assailed her; her mother had called Kevin a cradle-snatcher. She could hear, see, again, her mother, that dreadful day they had tried to tell her they wanted to marry. Screeching, a harpy, determined to pluck Del away from Kevin. If to be a cradle-snatcher was such a grievous offence then, surely, her mother would not have become involved with a teenager. Be the ultimate cradle-snatcher. Or would she? Could it have been shame screaming?

Kevin’s parents had had no such qualms; had approved and been happy for them, in their slow, weary way.

Del spread another chunk of bread, her ebullient mood evaporated.

‘Perhaps, but if men were in short supply, would it matter?’

Typical Barbara. Del felt a pang of disgust. She was glad their time together was drawing to a close. But Barb’s date of the night before still worried her. She rallied. ‘What’s his name?’

‘Something too long for me to pronounce,’ Barbara wriggled, reached into a pocket and produced a business card, placing it on the table in front of Del. ‘He asked me to call him Sal.’

Fidelma opened her mouth, breathing deeply but quietly, and forced herself to look at the card, though she could not touch it. White, with raised script in a burgundy colour. There was no doubt. Salvatore Brenna.

‘Actually, he’d probably be of more interest to you than me.’ Barbara was chattering on, continuing to be unaware of the distress Del was endeavouring to hide.

‘Why?’ Sharp, the word was more like a bark.

‘He’s into the Frederick story. I told him about your research. That’s why he gave me his card: so you can look him up for a chat.’ She was pleased, cheerful that she had been able to do another favour for Del.

‘What did you say?’ Still, Barb did not notice the harsh control in Del’s words.

‘Just told him about Susan’s latest project. Chatting with him could cut your research out altogether. Thirteenth century Italy has been his baby all his working life. That and teaching English.’

‘Really?’ Del saw new possibilities. Barbara had done her an enormous favour; provided her with a wonderful excuse to talk to the man who could be her natural father without revealing herself. She picked the card up. ‘Thanks, Barb,’ words more like a croak before she found the strength to add, ‘I might give him a buzz today.’

‘Not on. He was leaving for his home early this morning.’

Involuntarily Del glanced at the card again. Trani. The family home in Trani survived, the letter from Liverpool, burned into her consciousness, had read. Did he still live in the family home?

‘Can’t remember where he lives. It will be on his card.’ Barbara needed glasses to read; she had not brought them to breakfast. ‘He’s retired but, as he was coming here for the First Communion anyway, wangled a entrée to the Otranto conference. A bit sad for him: two of his sisters were in a car accident recently.’

Del, only half listening, was knocked all over again. The cousins, who had so rudely looked her over at the party, could be her aunts. She rose, scraping the chair, causing it to fall over, hiding her confusion. Not only might she have found a parent but a family as well. Head down, picking up the chair, she asked, ‘Does he know my name?’

‘Actually, I don’t think so. Sorry, Sweetie, I should have been more specific. Truth was, I was getting pretty bored with him by then. And after lunch and dinner I was feeling a bit washed out, ready for my bed.’ Leaving the table together they walked towards the sea, Del sliding the man’s card into her pocket. The Adriatic soughed and swelled into the deep hole, the natural pool the hotel had set aside for guests’ swimming. The waiter lad was the only person they had seen use it. Beyond, large ships moved across the horizon and a couple of yachts tacked towards Otranto. ‘I did mention Kevin. I said you had collaborated with your husband on a couple of books. But your name, Kevin’s, I doubt I said more than Del, maybe Delma.’

‘That’s okay.’ Del had regained her self-control. Suddenly, she knew if she had to give him a surname — she guessed they were still surnames here rather than family names — she would use ‘Turner’ for the first time ever. She and Kevin had had quite a serious spat just before they had married, she being adamant she would keep her own name. She hadn’t been sure Kevin had agreed until the night of the faculty dinner a month or so after the marriage. They had arrived late, all the others at their table were seated. Kevin was the new dean, their place was at the head of the table. Looking back down the decades she saw again the nervous girl she was, in a white, pique halter neck dress, her amber pendant hanging above breasts beginning to bulge though her stomach was still flat. And Kevin, his arm around her waist, had looked up and down the table, smiling broadly. ‘Hi, Everybody. May I present my wife, Fidelma Dunne. Known as Del.’

In the brief silence that followed, Del had fiddled with the little amber pendant with its speck of imprisoned insect. She still wore that pendant: it had been her father’s eighteenth birthday present to her. The father who had nurtured her. It was among his possessions, neatly wrapped, waiting for her after his death.

‘That’s okay,’ she repeated, ‘think nothing of it.’ She wanted to hug Barbara for her thoughtlessness.

‘Well. Standing here won’t get the packing done.’ Barbara, jiggling the room keys, left. Del slipped her sandals off and, moving closer to the sea pool, let the water glide over her feet. Packing was no big deal. The water was warmer than she had presumed; she sat on the rock rim and gingerly dabbled her feet then dangled her legs in the soothing, slowly swirling water.

She desperately needed to talk to some one. Who? Kevin, yes, but Kevin was no more. He would have loved the irony in this story. After the faculty dinner she had, shyly as she was still unsure of the wonder of living with him, thanked him for allowing her to keep her name. And the lost, lone boy look she had made it her life’s mission to soothe and stroke away, had been sharp on the pillow. ‘Mine is borrowed. Why share it further? You might as well keep yours.’ She had kissed his hurt away. And the love-making had flowed easily between them.

Her name, too, it now seemed, was borrowed. He would have loved that part of the story.

Kevin had been adopted. The parish priest had given him away but Kevin knew not where from. In those days before their marriage they had gone to visit his parents on their dairy farm on the south coast out of Bega. Norman and Norma Turner had sloshed around in gumboots, the milk vats had smelt of cow hair and the stench of the paddocks, nauseating. The older couple literally worked from pre-dawn on into the dusk, seven days a week. And they never ceased their toil while Del was there those days. ‘Why they ever wanted a baby, I have no idea,’ Kevin had remarked as they strolled across the paspalum paddocks dodging soft cow pats, ‘they have never had the time to care. It must have been a Church thing. When I went to school, the nuns gave me special coaching — that’s how I won the bursary to Joey’s — and I used to think each nun, as I progressed through the classes, was my real mother.’

Norman and Norma could not take time off for a wedding. Later, the coming of mechanisation and refrigeration gradually freed up their time; they had been willing grandparents to the twins, Annie and Carol; generous with their new found leisure. Just recently the farm had been taken over, bought out, for a sum that was more than they had ever earned, but not a fortune. And they had sat together, holding hands and howled and snorted noisily throughout Kevin’s funeral.

Good hearted, slow thinking people who had missed out on the great gift they had been given.

What of the twins? Could she tell the twins? She had deliberately refused to think about their part in her story, her mother’s story; had hoped all would be swept away. A wave, bigger, more swoosh than the others, washed out of the pool, wetting her shorts. But if her father was a man still more or less in his prime, had she the right to deprive them of a grandfather? And he was an academic; they would have something in common with him from the beginning. She knew she would tell them one day; perhaps sooner rather than later. She pictured the three of them seated on a bed, or a couch or, maybe, by the riverside and them listening, eager, breathless, as they used to listen to her stories in their childhood. Her heart hurt with the need to see them and fearing she would begin crying, she slipped from the rock edge into the pool, in shorts and sports shirt, and, kicking, propelled herself to the ocean side. She rested there, beside the lifebuoy, gasping at the ocean’s coldness and her own loneliness.

Barbara called out from the balcony, pretend shuddering. Del lifted a dripping arm in response then Barb disappeared from view, returning, waving a towel. She was soon standing on the sandy strip of beach and Del plunged under, swam towards her and pulled herself from the water. Though her need to talk to someone had not eased, the water had refreshed her mood; brought the brightness of the day back to her. She would think on her problem again when she was alone.

‘A towel’s not much use when you are as wet as I am.’ Nevertheless, she took the proffered towel, her own beach towel, not the hotel’s silly little bit of linen, European style, towel. She began wiping her hair. ‘I haven’t been swimming in my clothes since I used to short-cut through the gilgais with the sheep dogs.’

‘I’m pleased you had a bra on; you could have made a complete spectacle of yourself.’ They both laughed.

‘Probably did anyway. Lucky the season is still quiet.’ Del wrapped herself in the towel, patting it against her clothing. ‘Packed?’

Barb nodded, ‘More or less. The trouble with having a car is one does sort of spread one’s belongings.’

‘About the car,’ Del picked up her sandals and they turned to walk back to their rooms, ‘I think I will keep it. Public transport is good but following up Bianca might take a bit of to-ing and fro-ing.’

‘Suit yourself. But, as I said, one short interview with new friend Sal and you’d have all the material you’d need.’

‘Ah, yes, but it’s the chase I like. Being on the spot, fitting in the shoes. Gives me…well, I feel my work is more authentic. Certainly more enjoyable.’ She hoped she wasn’t sounding preachy; it was hard to believe Barbara’s quick-fix research techniques were fun.

‘Have it your way,’ Barbara shrugged, adding, ‘there’s no problem about having the car longer. What are your plans – if you won’t take short cuts?’ They had reached their rooms and Barbara’s grin, reminiscent of the bigger nose, indicated she realised Del had been criticising her.

‘Melfi, Venosa, Andria, the Gargano plain and,’ she took a risk, ‘I’ll probably end up in Trani; do my writing up there.’

The significance was lost on Barbara; she either really did not recall where he lived or, more probably, had lost total interest in knowing.