‘Does your mum know you have them here in this box?’
‘Mamma! Pfft! This is survival of the fittest. She’s on her own. If it ever comes up, I’m covered.’ She pumped a balled fist into the air then pointed to the palm crucifix on the dash. ‘This one will transfer to the shoebox come next Easter. It will be replaced by the latest instalment of palms. And so the circle of life continues. Nonna Maria gets to sleep, which means I get to sleep. Guilt and shame-free.’
‘This has just made my day. Brilliant.’
‘Oh, speaking of nonne. When we get back, remind me that we need to ask Nonna Maria if she knows anything about your nonna, eh? Because if they lived in Impastino at the same time, for sure . . .’
‘Grazie.’ Alessio smiled.
Francesca rounded the bend and pulled rapidly to a halt. Ahead of them in the middle of the road stood a brown donkey with a sparse black mane.
‘Cazzo,’ she breathed, and reached back into her basket to retrieve her phone. ‘Signora Ricci’s stubborn ass! Just one moment . . .’ She dialled, and Alessio watched on, amused, as the donkey turned to note the presence of their car, only to drop down on his hind legs to sitting. ‘Pronto? Signora . . . Sì, buongiorno. Francesca. Sì. Senta, in mezzo alla strada. Sì. Di nuovo. Grazie.’ She ended the call and explained, ‘This is Carciofo, he belongs to Signora Ricci. The woman who—’
‘Didn’t take plastic bags to the supermarket. The one who has a certain “reputation”. I remember.’
A delighted smile filled her face, drawing the apples of her cheeks high. ‘I’m impressed. You’re quickly becoming a local.’
‘Ha!’ he chimed. ‘Don’t speak too soon.’
Returning her gaze to the road ahead, she said, ‘He escapes through her gate. She always forgets to lock it.’
Alessio couldn’t help himself. ‘Maybe it’s her lovers who leave the gate open, darting out for a quick escape in the early hours of the morning.’
‘Alessio! Who told you that?’ She laughed, but then sighed, giving the car horn a sharp toot. Carciofo, unimpressed by the noise, brayed and snorted through his muzzle, but he stood up and walked to Alessio’s side of the car.
Alessio wound down the window and reached out his arm, patting Carciofo tenderly along his flank as he moved slowly past. His mane was bristly and coarse.
‘He’s a pet, right? Or is he likely to be eaten?’
‘Everything around here stands to be eaten. We live off all the land. How do you feel about that?’
Alessio saw the covert glance she gave him over her outstretched arms, her hands fixed tightly to the steering wheel. ‘I’ll try anything,’ he replied.
Just as Signora Ricci appeared by her open gate with a weathered leash in hand, Francesca hit the accelerator, and Sophia zipped off down the road.
‘A man after my own heart,’ she said wistfully, and they drove in companiable silence for a while, passing fewer properties as they moved into farming land.
The grass-scented summer breeze filtered in through Alessio’s open window. As they drove past a field of fruit trees he got a whiff of overripe stagnant fruit and vines; an almost acrid smell. Then on the lower plains, the air took on the tangy kick of animal excrement as they passed a field of black and white goats. Alessio took it all in.
Beyond it all was the land with its salinised soil, kissed by the Adriatic. But Alessio saw that much of it was dry; the grasses crisped to yellow and brown, patches of mud cracked and splintered. Skeletal trunks of trees poked from the ground, their knots and bare branches the only evidence of a former, leafier, life.
‘It’s all so dry,’ he commented, pointing ahead of them. ‘Drought?’
‘I like to think of it as thirsty. Always thirsty.’
‘The word is sete, right?’
‘Sì, we say avere sete. To be thirsty. Or, literally to have thirst.’
Alessio tried his best to scramble what sounded right in his mind to form a conjugation. ‘So, la terra ha sete?’
‘Bravissimo! Sì, la terra ha sete. Impastino ha sete. Francesca ha sete. But, Alessio e Francesca hanno sete. Hanno, because we are plural. They.’
‘Ok.’ His eyes caught the lines of prickly pear cacti which now flanked the road. ‘Fichi d’India,’ he said. ‘Nonna loved them.’ Leaning his shoulder against the window frame, an image appeared in his mind: of his nonna sitting on her back veranda, ratty old tea towel over her legs, bowl in her lap and plastic-handled serrated knife in hand, expertly peeling prickly pears without so much as a splinter, let alone a prickle.
‘We always ate fruit after a meal,’ he said. ‘Whatever was in season in her garden, or whatever a zio or zia, or cousin had dropped over. Always fruit. And always peeled. She and Nonno we expert peelers. One long line of peel. No breaks. They would show off the curls of apple peel, orange. Whatever it was. They took pride in everything they did.’
‘There is great humility in such things.’
