Robyn Hogan

Del meets her father

A woman answered the telephone. ‘Prego’. Del, quite composed, enquired for Signore Brenna and was asked to wait on.

‘Sal Brenna.’

‘Please, Signore,’ she spoke in Italian, ‘my name is Delma and I am from Australia. I was recently in Castro Marina with my friend, Barbara. You dined with my friend.’

‘Si, si, Ah, yes, I have been expecting your call.’

Del sighed with relief. ‘I am in Trani. I would like to discuss some aspects of the Hohenstaufen reign with you. I understand the thirteenth century is your particular forte.’

‘Si, I like to think so too. And you are lodging at the hotel of my friend, Francesca.’

Oh hell! The passport was Dunne, not Turner. A miracle and Francesca might not have said anything other than ‘Delma’. ‘Yes. I am. And very comfortable it is too.’ This was her father she was speaking to; she rubbed first one dank hand, then the other, down her jeans.

‘Then, perhaps we could meet here.’

‘At your home?’ At his home: she could see how he lived; his books, his taste in art, check out his hobbies. Too good to be true.

‘Si. It is ten o’clock now,’ Del, getting to sleep as dawn lights splashed the horizon, fresh sunshine streaking black and gold on a smooth sea and the cathedral looking hauntingly beautiful, had slept in. ‘Is this morning all right? Say, in an hour’s time?’

‘Certainly, Signore.’

Del was shaking as she replaced the handset, her whole being out of control and nauseous butterflies in her stomach. It took some minutes to calm herself; assure herself it was only another research interview: what was she in such a panic about? Slowly, as she watched the mid-morning sunshine glitter across the sea and whitewash the great cathedral, making it shimmer in its setting, she regained control. She must think of him as Susan did: a resource centre. She must concentrate on the history subject — and steer clear of all personal revelations. After all, she was only one more student where he was concerned.

She arrived promptly and the housekeeper, if that she was in her floral overall, showed her into the reception room. Though she pulled a tassel for the light to come on it remained a darkish room, square, terracotta floor tiles on which was spread a large, oriental style carpet with a dominant colour of dark red. Maroon, actually. Del had the feeling that it was probably very old and rather precious. In the centre of the room was a low, dark coffee table on which stood a small, smooth, serene statue. Probably antique. It glowed so, and Del was sure it had not come from Woolies — or the Italian equivalent thereof. She dared not touch it. Though the shutters were open, damask curtains hung across the window, the slight breeze adding movement to the wavy, woven-in pattern. Beneath the window and jutting into the room was a sofa which took Del’s breath away. It reminded her of the prop for Matisse’s odalisque, the one in red trousers. His footsteps alerted her. She knew it to be him; although no longer a young man, he walked with the measured steps of the soldier as had her father. Turning to greet him, she stretched her arm out for the inevitable handshake.

‘You have a lovely home here,’ she commented after they were seated in upright, leather chairs close by the occasional table. The housekeeper bustled in carrying a tray and put it on the table.

‘Thank you, Silvia. This is Silvia. Delma.’ She held her breath waiting for him to ask her surname but it either did not matter to him or was not necessary for Silvia to know it. On the other hand, the imperious tone and manner of his introduction made both women seem lesser beings.

‘Fresh gelati,’ the woman announced, ‘melon, the first of the season.’ There were two bowls of the pale orange coloured confection with a tang that overpowered the oily polish smell that had been dominating the room.

‘How delicious,’ Del commented, smiling, almost laughing at Silvia, who nodded her pleasure and left. Del turned towards Sal Brenna, still smiling, and met a stunned look from a face suddenly drained of colour.

‘Are you all right?’ Don’t you dare have a heart attack flashed through her mind.

‘Yes,’ he murmured, still staring at her, then added, ‘the way you laugh: it reminded me of someone.’

‘It’s just Australian,’ Del offered, her wits returned.

‘Your friend, Barbara, does not have your type of laugh. Hers is thin and tight.’

As you would if you’d planned a nose to match, but Del said nothing.

‘And your eyes, the set of your eyes…’

Dear God! He wasn’t going to take her apart piece by piece was he? Then she remembered his sisters, the ones Francesca, the hotel keeper, had said she, Del, resembled. She scooped a spoonful of the ice-cold gelato and let it roll round her mouth before it ran down caressing her throat with its cool, rich flavour. ‘Mmm.’ Head down, preparing another spoonful, she offered, ‘Francesca thought I looked a little like your sisters. It’s not unusual in grief to see a loved one in someone else.’ She glanced at him, his colour had returned. ‘My sincere sympathy,’ she said quietly before taking another spoonful and swallowing the delicious sweet.

He, too, began to eat and nothing was said for several seconds. ‘You have Italian blood in you?’

‘No. Spanish. My grandmother was part Spanish.’ No matter that she had dropped a generation.

‘Our family, too, has Spanish blood. It is an old family, originally Norman and well enough connected through the centuries to live well, succeed, but not so much as to rival the ruling class.’ He placed his not-quite-empty bowl back on the table, the spoon rattling slightly. ‘One of ours married the Hohenstaufen.’

Of course! The penny dropped: the original Brenna name was de Brienne. ‘Yolande, Frederick’s second wife, the child bride Iolanthe, titular Queen of Jerusalem,’ she laughed. That’s right, Del, keep off the personal.

Again, the stricken look passed over the man’s face. ‘Your dimple, you have a dimple just like hers.’

The vision of Margaret Dunne’s last smile flashed before Del, the deep crease of the dimple a surprise in the aged skin. She had long forgotten she had that feature in common with her mother. Indeed, she had never thought of herself as looking like her mother at all. There was no doubt Anne and Davy were a nice mixture of both parents but the heavy ghost of the old Fidelma had been placed on her head at birth. And she had grown true to type.

‘And your eyes are those of my sisters.’ He sounded forlorn, lonely, as he rose from the chair but added, briskly enough, ‘let’s go to the study and work there.’

Del took a last mouthful of sweet and placed the bowl on the tray. As they stood together then moved, she had time to check the set of his eyes; it was not the same as hers. Nor the colour, as his were a rich brown. Nor could she say any feature of his face, which was both more defined and lighter in skin colour than she had expected, was similar to hers. But it is hard to pick one’s own features in someone else; we do not see ourselves as others do except through a photograph, provided that the negative has not been reversed. Following him down a short hall, polished floor boards creaking slightly, she took stock of his back. No longer a big man, she could see the broad shoulders, the flexible hips of the younger man. The muscles, though, were not the solid ones of the fishermen folding their nets, sweeping their boats by the quay, but, rather, those developed through genteel exercise. Probably golf, she decided.

He waved her into his study then moved past her to take up his chair on the far side of a desk. Apart for the window against which he sat, the walls were lined, floor to ceiling with books. Del paused in wonder, reading titles, rapidly drinking in the works, the type of works, that had influenced his life. She did not realise how rude she must seem until he called her attention.

‘The reference material we will be considering is on my desk. Please be seated.’

Flustered, Del fell into a chair, another upright one. She felt about twenty and a bear of little brain. Elbows on the desk, he leant forward, interlacing his fingers. She noted the arthritis evident in his hands and the slight curve, the academic’s legacy, of his back. She was also surprised to realise he was wheezing slightly yet a quick survey of the desktop did not reveal him as a smoker. Perhaps, once but not now, she concluded.

‘What are you researching? What do you hope to learn?’

Del took a deep breath then outlined what she knew of Susan’s plans for the anthology and of how she, Del, was having trouble developing any strong story line but, when she began to refer to Barbara’s work, he cut her short. Besides making her feel immature and gauche, she suddenly realised that there could well be a time limit to their talk. He was certainly in lecturer–student mode and it would bide her well not to waste his time.

‘Tell me what you know?’

She and Kevin had always said this to each other when one of them was stuck, blocked in thoughts on a topic. It became their talisman and his use of the phrase, though in a different language, jerked at her senses. If his tone had not been demanding she could have been quite distracted. One hand, beneath the desk, pinched up a pleat of the soft cotton material of her trousers; the other began rubbing it back and forwards between forefinger and thumb. The simple, hidden movement calmed her, let her focus her thoughts, and, when she replied the mature woman was on view.

‘First, I have to establish her identity. We know her name, Bianca Lancia, her father’s and brothers’ names and where her home was. I do not know her date of birth, nor when she died. Nor whether she was ever actually married to Frederick. But it is fact that their son, Manfred, ruled for a time; that he and their daughter made politically advantageous marriages.’

‘Mmm. You have some lineage. A good beginning. It would be a more thorough study if you were to concentrate on Frederick.’

‘But the subject is women. Female commoners involved with royalty; queens with their underlings.’

She allowed him time to comment but, as he remained silent, she continued, rushing somewhat. ‘One of the aspects of the period that particularly interests me is the changing attitude to women that can be traced through Frederick’s reign. There is evidence, particularly at Frederick’s court, of mixed gatherings, dancing and celebrations at the beginning of the century but, as the decades wore on, the Church exercised more and more power and eventually succeeded in relegating women to the status of incubators. That all daughters but only first-born sons could inherit may also have contributed to the change in attitude. But why would any well-off woman give her money and independence to a lesser son to squander and herself up for the very real risks and dependence of childbirth? Which brings me back to Bianca: she was educated, a notary no less, she had to have had love, lust in the modern context, in mind to have thrown herself into Frederick’s harem. And he could not have forced her, rape was a capital offence under the Constitutions of Melfi. She was not, and events, though sketchy, bear me out, destined to be merely a plaything for an Emperor, no matter how illustrious.’

Spreading her hands out on her thighs she paused, regarding them, collecting the thoughts of her argument. She was about to continue when, raising her eyes towards him, they fixed on his hands. The knuckles were a little gnarled and the nails slightly ridged but, otherwise, the shape of his fingers, the shortness of length compared to the width of palm, was a similar proportion to her own. Even the smooth skin colour and the almost hairlessness were alike. She gasped, not daring to meet his eyes and blushed as she realised she had forgotten her premise; nor could she trust her voice to continue. His hands held her mesmerised.

As from a distance or out of a dream she heard him say, ‘It is woman’s duty to bear children.’

She dropped her eyes to her hands again, fingers busily pinching little pleats into the fabric covering her thighs, and forced her thoughts away from him and back to Bianca. So what?

‘The problem today is this so-called female independence issue. Italy’s population is aging, the birthrate falling; young people like yourself are not taking your responsibilities to humanity seriously.’

At first his words did not register with her but, when they did, her ire came up. Who was changing the subject now? Why was he being so personal? ‘Well, I have borne and raised two children; how many have you sired? One, if that? And how many have you — ’ she broke off and sat, still, horrified at her temerity, waiting for his dismissal.

His wheezing, louder, more rapid, was the only sound in the room. The thought, I don’t like you, trailed through Del’s mind blaming him for the closeness she had come to claiming his parentage. The rashness of her reaction began to horrify her and she rose to leave. She had been determined that she would tell him nothing personal, that she would keep strictly to the topic of history and her research needs and it had taken no time at all for her to nearly give herself away.

‘You are right.’ The infinite sadness in his words brought her eyes to his face. A couple of tears slowly coursed down the hollow of his cheeks. ‘Forgive an old man. My mind sometimes wanders these days.’ He gestured to her to sit down and she did so; she could not leave him and walk out on such sadness. He drew a white, neatly ironed handkerchief from his trouser pocket, flicked it open and wiped his cheeks, dabbed at his eyes. From somewhere in the house she heard the muffled chime of a clock and was about to suggest she had taken sufficient of his time when he spoke again. ‘Margherita bore a child to me.’ He put his head down on the desk, resting it on folded arms, and sobbed.

To Del’s horror, tears sprung to her own eyes. The feeling rising in her was totally alien to her; she wanted to hold this man, croon peace to him. Nothing sexual, nothing spiritual and something stronger than sympathy. A deep affinity, as if her body, independently of all her resolve, recognised him as part of her. Involuntarily she stretched out a hand and stroked his bowed head. His hair was thinning and fine and held in place by a faint smear of oil that camouflaged the greyness. Unconsciously, she moved round the desk and, placing her hands on his shoulders, began kneading them. The cashmere of his jumper was soft to her touch but the muscles beneath were tight and knotted. She resisted an almost unbearable desire to kiss his neck, bared and vulnerable before her. Careful, she counselled herself, take care and keep control. She pulled in her stomach on a deep, silent breath to steady the threat of trembling and buried the thought that she was, in reality, comforting her father. That would only lead to her confessing her position; it was imperative that she remain strong and aloof until all factors involved in telling him or not could be considered and weighed.

Slowly, Sal Brenna lifted his head and turned to look at her, his face drained and damp. ‘You are so like her. Her complexion is fairer but even some of your mannerisms are hers.’ His mouth twisted as he gulped back further sobs.

Del straightened; their faces were too close and, though she felt tears form again in her eyes, she hoped he would interpret them as merely sympathetic. She must not let him think they could be symptomatic of something deeper. That he knew Margaret had had a child forced her further on her guard; she would have to lie about her age as well as her name if he asked. ‘Could I get you a glass of water?’ The words jumped out. Good, Del, stay practical; give him space.

At his nod she walked swiftly out of his study, paused momentarily in the hallway before making her way to the front room. From there, she could smell cooking — garlic, onions, tomatoes and basil — and the faint rattle of utensils which led her to the kitchen. Silvia stood by a table, pasta dough rolled out on a large board. She was cutting it into small squares then folding them with a quick twist to form the shape of little ears, orecchiette, the traditional pasta of Puglia.

‘Excuse me, Silvia, but could I have a glass of water for Signore Brenna, please?’

The housekeeper looked up with a broad smile and began wiping her flour coated hands on a cloth tucked in the waist tie of her overall. ‘No, no. I can get it,’ Del indicated stop with her hands, ‘just point me to the glassware.’

‘Certainly,’ her fingers were already back working the pasta, the relief that she did not have to cease doing so, almost palpable, ‘in the cupboard to the right of the sink.’

Del sidled past her — she was a large woman in a small, somewhat cluttered kitchen — and went to the sink.

‘Is he coughing again?’

‘No. Not really. Just talking a lot. You know,’ she added conspiratorially, smiling back at Silvia, before opening the cupboard and selecting a glass.

‘About Margherita?’ Del noted Silvia’s hands hovered above the pasta, the urgency of folding it suddenly not so great.

‘He has mentioned her,’ Del spoke cautiously as she turned on the tap and ran water into the glass.

Silvia let out a loud sigh and resumed her work. ‘Never stops mentioning her. And we never heard a thing about her until he retired, came home full time. We, none of us, know whether she exists or not but, if he can get the conversation round to her, he does.’

From her words, the tone she spoke, Del realised Silvia must be part of the family. She had not considered his family, apart from the recently dead twins. The possibility it could be large and rambling or a small, close knitted entity had hardly entered her thoughts, her calculations. Which was very silly of her, after all he was in Castro for a family gathering. She decided it was time to do a little digging.

‘Perhaps losing his twin sisters, the grief he must feel, has taken him back to an earlier love.’

‘Ah, the Flowers of the family.’ She sighed then grunted, her hands never hesitating in their work. ‘They were my sisters too but you don’t see me dredging up lost loves and rambling on. And his obsession began before Lilia and Rosa passed on. It began when he retired. Like all men, he’s got too little to do.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you were Sal’s sister.’ Del caught her breath; she had been too familiar. But Silvia did not seem to notice.

‘How would you know? But yes, I’m the unmarried daughter who got to look after our parents and now him.’ She sniffed, leaving Del with the distinct impression this was not a happy home. It might be the female duty to bear children; it seemed there was also a duty to care for family members. ‘He’s worse since he met you Australians.’

‘He had never mentioned her ever before he retired, what, three years ago?’ Del mentally cringed, realising she should not know his age, then, as there was no reaction from Silvia, forged ahead. ‘Not even when he first came home from the war?’

The older woman looked up, brushing a stray trail of hair back with a floury wrist, then waved her arm towards the stove. ‘Could you give that pot a stir, Cara. Can’t bear it when the tomatoes stick.’ Del placed the glass of water she was holding on the bench beside the sink and, picking up a wooden spoon, began stirring the bubbling pot of vegetables. ‘To tell the truth,’ Silvia continued, ‘I don’t rightly remember. I was only ten at the time. I recall him all full of himself, swaggering off to university. No time for low-life like me.’

Oh dear, not a happy family at all. Del was distancing herself fast, becoming quite detached.

‘The older sisters, the ones between him and me, think they were under the impression he had a girl but, as I say, he went to university, didn’t have much to do with us and Gina was in love with everything that wore pants, so she wouldn’t really have noticed much. She lives in Castro now. Elena wasn’t much better, aping after Gina.’ She sniffed again and Del could not tell whether the flour or disdain was the cause of the sniff. ‘Leaving me to look after the Flowers.’

Del picked up the glass again determined to escape before she caused another Brenna to cry but could not resist one last, quick enquiry. ‘He told me she bore him a child.’

Silvia jerked up, knocking the neat stack of orecchiette, her amber coloured eyes wide and wild. She has my eyes, Del thought, irrelevantly.

‘Then that settles it,’ she announced firmly, ‘we’ll have to get him to a psychiatrist. He’s definitely having delusions. Beh! Building a family for himself in his old age!’

Del did not wait to discuss the matter, almost scuttling from the kitchen.

She located the study again and was relieved to see Salvatore sitting upright, rapidly annotating the margins of an article. He took the proffered glass and, sliding a coaster out from under a file tray, carefully placed the glass on it. He’s well house-trained, Del thought, and wondered who actually ruled here.

‘Thank you. I apologise—’
‘ —think nothing of it.’ She cut him off with a hand gesture and sat down.

Almost shyly he shuffled some papers closer to him. ‘The way I advise students to build an identity is, first, be sure of the name, then look to immediate ancestors, siblings and descendants. This sets the genotype.’ Del nodded; she wasn’t about to learn great, original truths. ‘The rest of a character is phenotype. Know what I mean?’

She would pamper to him. ‘I think I do.’

‘Go on. Tell me.’

‘Um. Well. Matters to be considered are the social position, type of housing, line of work or profession, wealth or poverty factor. Religion. Looks. Physical build, mental strength, emotional stability or otherwise.’ He continued to nod agreement at each point, hands relaxed on the desktop, fingers casually interlaced. He had not touched the water. Del wondered whether she dared to ask for a sip. ‘Nationality, period, social conventions and restrictions of the times. Health.’ This was getting ridiculous. ‘May I have a little water, please?’

He smiled. It was the first time she had seen him smile. ‘Certainly’. He slid the coaster and glass towards her.

After she had taken a couple of careful mouthfuls and, continuing to hold the glass, she changed the subject, speaking firmly. ‘It is facts about Bianca that I need, not speculation. I can speculate when I have the facts.’ She noted the quick frown that creased his brow. He wasn’t interested in some little bit-time mistress; his was the bigger picture of the dominant male rampaging through history. He may have made thirteenth century Southern Italy his speciality but it was from a totally masculine viewpoint. Of course he wasn’t alone in his attitude; that was what was making her work so difficult. And why the emphasis now being placed on women’s stories was so refreshing. The latest Frederick biography, though close on 450 pages the copyright no more than three years old, had barely mentioned women; Frederick’s three queens had had a line each, Bianca was missing altogether. It reduced the picture of the man somewhat. ‘Perhaps, I have not made my mission sufficiently clear, Signore. For instance, did Frederick marry her? When and where did she die?’ Back to you, Big Boy.

‘Do you think Frederick married her?’ He was a lecturer indeed, fielding her thrusts nicely.

She fiddled with the little amber pendant at her throat. ‘Yes. I do. As evidence, I cite the endowments traditionally bestowed on the queen consort. Rather transitory endowments,’ she added wryly, ‘as queens kept falling off the perch. Heavens! Frederick had had three queens and the good Lord only knows how many mistresses die in childbirth before he got round to giving gifts to Bianca. That he made the gifts is what is important. I can balance a love story on that. Besides the dowry gift of Monte St. Angelo, he also gave her the counties of Gravina, Tricario and somewhere else. These passed to Manfred in Frederick’s Will so that must surely mean she had to have died before Frederick.’

Del had checked out Monte St. Angelo, where the cult of St. Michael, the warrior angel, had flourished in the fifth, perhaps fourth, century after Christ. The saint was believed to have appeared in a grotto there. Also, a rock church dedicated to St. Michele is set in the heart of the Gravina ravine. Ancient, holy places. Just the type of gifts, she thought, bemused, Frederick would choose for his spiritual soul mate.

‘And he does not have to have married her for the sake of your love story?’ His words arrested her reverie just in time.

‘No. But it would help,’ Del laughed defensibly.

‘Because I don’t believe he did.’

Del arched her eyebrows at him, noted he flinched, paled, but kept control. Had her mannerism reminded him of her mother yet again? ‘He had plans to marry Gertrude of Babenburg five years before his death but it seems she knocked him back. And, just months before his death he was planning on going to Germany to marry the daughter of the Saxony duke, Albert.’ He indicated a paragraph in one of the photocopied articles before him.

‘Plans. Negotiations. We can’t know whether they were anything more than the ideas of glib-tongued notaries.’ It was obvious to her that he could not add to her knowledge. She stood, stretched out her hand. ‘Thank you for your time, Professor, it has been most instructive.’

He did not move, just gazed steadily at her. ‘You are a very strong minded person, with an active intelligence and good thought patterns.’

‘Thank you,’ she smiled at him, turning to leave.

‘Why, then, are you determined to write trash?’

The audacity took her breath away.

‘You should be writing well researched, thought-provoking articles.’

‘I would be if I was still in academia,’ she snapped at him, ‘but how far is such information disseminated? Most articles rot in the library basement waiting to be catalogued. And if an opinion does rise to the surface of the flotsam and make its way into some other sod’s thesis, it will sink a second time, doubly rot.’

Her outburst did nothing to alter the stern, harsh expression on his face. She suddenly glimpsed what having him as a father might have meant in her life. The wonderful companionship of her youth would not have endured in this household. Nor, she hazarded a guess, would she have scored a university education. Perhaps not even much in the way of formal education.

‘If you insist on writing from the feminist point of view you’ve been putting to me, then I should hope your work failed.’

‘Thank you.’ The sarcasm, as thick as gelato, ran round her teeth, sticky and sweet as she stared belligerently into his face. This is what it would have been like, living with him as parent, she thought.

Surprisingly, his face began to crumble. ‘I think you might have misunderstood me.’

‘I don’t think so.’ She dropped her eyes. ‘You have made it perfectly clear, indeed in a word of one syllable, you think my work irrelevant in the great scheme of world events. Well, I’ll tell you,’ she bent forward unconsciously, glaring at him again, ‘I have readers, I have a market — and I have a publisher who believes in me. If my words can bring warmth and interest and, yes, courage into someone’s life, someone who has not had the privileges I have enjoyed, then so be it.’

‘You have misunderstood me. Or, perhaps, I expressed myself badly. You see,’ he smiled with an odd sort of charm, ‘I have dictated the topics for so long. It has been my agenda with which others have had to comply. Your approach is quite alien to me.’

She nodded slowly. That’s where they came unstuck: he wanted to dictate, she, discuss.

‘And today, I am much distracted.’ He shook his head, the sadness brimming again in his eyes. ‘You remind me so much of Margherita. Can I tell you about her?’

A solid lump rose in Del’s throat at the pathetic little request. She swallowed hard and sat down. ‘I will have to go soon,’ she advised softly.

‘We met picking oranges. They bussed us prisoners, work volunteers we were, into this orchard called Quondong and more or less left us unsupervised. While ever we picked, the foreman left us alone. It was more important to him to have the work done, the crop harvested. It was a “bumper” year.’ Del smiled at the Australian colloquialism inserted so naturally into his Italian; he had told himself this story many times. Probably since before she was born. ‘Pickers were in short supply and some women from the neighbouring farms joined in. Most worked in the packing shed but Margherita chose picking. She was good at it, too, and it meant her children could play among the trees. She was the only woman who brought children to work with her.’ Why latch onto her? Del silently wanted to know but did not interrupt. ‘You think I’m anti-feminist but I’m not. Margherita opened my eyes. She was so natural and friendly; she wore these army shorts and canvas shoes and would run along the picking board like a gazelle, her legs flashing in the sunshine. Legs the colour of honey.’

He fell silent. An old man reliving his youth in another land, another dimension.

‘I loved her.’ His voice choked. ‘I love her still.’ He brushed the tears away with his white handkerchief.

Del knew she should do him the kindness of asking him something but what could she say when she knew the end of the story and he did not?

In the distance the house clock began chiming just seconds before the cathedral bells, louder, more insistent, tolled the angelus. Silvia appeared at the door.

‘Are you staying for colazione?’ Silvia asked Del before turning to her brother. ‘Have you asked her to join us for colazione?’

‘Oh no. No, thank you, Silvia.’ She deliberately looked at her wristwatch. ‘Good heavens, I didn’t realise it was so late. I must go.’

Sal Brenna’s hand was firmly on her arm. ‘Please stay. We have much still to talk about.’

Silvia Brenna held her other hand in one of hers, her other caressing Del’s arm in firm strokes. ‘You must stay.’

Del was wedged between them; she felt captured. Sal’s eyes, dangerously close, implored. Suddenly she saw in their dark, tannic colour the deep end of a gilgai and felt herself galloping past, her father, Dave Dunne, riding beside her. She had to flee. Sal Brenna’s eyes were damp. And she knew, if she stayed, all he would talk about was her mother. She had to escape. She pulled back from his grasp only to have Silvia hold her more firmly. Silvia, who had not remarked on Del’s likeness to the Flowers because Silvia had mothered her twin sisters, had known them intimately. To Silvia, Del was a pleasant stranger who could spice up the drabness of her domesticity.

‘Si, you must stay,’ Silvia echo-ed her brother and, it seemed to Del, began pulling her towards the kitchen.

Del braced herself, leant back from their grasp, forcing them to realise her discomfort.

‘I can’t. I’m going to London and I have to see about the tickets.’ Their grip relaxed but their interest in her increased. ‘And the souvenirs,’ she added, surprise at the whole new idea ringing in her ears. She wasn’t sure London was far enough away but she had to distance herself. Get away from them and the oppressive, sour feel of the house. ‘Thank you. It’s most kind of you but I really have to go.’ She backed away, touching the hall wall behind her before she turned and walked rapidly towards the street door. She felt she was scampering in her effort to escape and bade her farewell far too rapidly to be polite.

Once out on the street she did not look back but trotted towards the old city on feet burning to run.