Maarten Vanpoucke continued to study the woman in the photograph.

‘When was this taken?’ he asked, peering closely at it through his spectacles.

Lucky was puzzled by the question, and he wished Maarten would give the photograph back; he was not accustomed to sharing his photograph of Ruth.

‘At university in Berlin,’ he said rather shortly, ‘not long after we met,’ and he held out his hand for the photograph.

‘Forgive me.’ The Dutchman smiled apologetically as he passed it to him. ‘I didn’t wish to be intrusive, it’s just that I couldn’t help admiring her. She is very beautiful, your wife.’

‘Yes,’ Lucky agreed, slipping the photograph into his wallet. ‘She was. Very beautiful.’ He felt embarrassed. He’d been impolite and he hoped he hadn’t offended the man.

But Maarten’s attention was distracted. Mrs Hodgeman had appeared bearing a large silver tray.

‘Ah, the flan,’ he said, rubbing his hands together approvingly as the housekeeper placed the tray on the table. ‘Look at that, fit for a king. And a work of art, wouldn’t you agree?’

Lucky did. The fruit flan was huge and looked like a stained-glass window.

‘I shall serve, Mrs Hodgeman,’ Maarten said, lifting the dessert plates from the tray, ‘thank you.’

‘Right you are, sir.’ The housekeeper left beaming.

‘A small portion for me, Maarten, please.’

But the Dutchman apparently was not listening as he carved a large section from the corner of the flan, lifted it with the cake slice and placed it ceremoniously on one of the plates.

‘Now tell me all about young Pietro – he’s in love, you say?’ He slid the plate across the table to Lucky.

Lucky took a deep breath, preparing to embark upon both the flan and Pietro’s love affair. The night was losing its savour. He would have to demolish the flan or he would hurt Mrs Hodgeman’s feelings, and he would have to circumvent Pietro’s love affair, which had taken a complicated turn.

 

‘We’re lucky to have Lucky.’ Propped on one elbow, Violet played with the patch of hair on his chest – she loved the way she could twirl the hairs in the very centre into a perfect curl.

‘Maureen also,’ he said, ‘we are lucky to have Maureen.’

It was unusually sweltering for early November, and their bodies glistened with the heat of the night and their own exertions as they lay entwined on the narrow bed in Violet’s little room on the back verandah.

He ran his fingers over her skin, tracing the curve of her spine, relishing the feel of her breasts against his ribs as she cuddled beside him. The perfection of Violet’s body was a constant source of admiration to Pietro who spent every waking hour these days marvelling at his good fortune. To think that such a woman returned his love! He was the luckiest man on God’s earth.

‘It is me is lucky,’ he said, stroking the damp locks back from her face, running a finger over the freckles of her nose.

‘It is I,’ she corrected him in her schoolteacher voice. Violet was a stickler with his English – he’d asked her to be – and she made a game of it.

‘It is I is lucky,’ he said.

‘It is I who am lucky,’ she persisted, sounding very like Peggy Minchin, then she bent and kissed the perfect curl of hair on his chest, wriggling against him as she did so.

It didn’t take much to arouse Pietro.

‘You also is lucky?’ he teased. But he corrected himself immediately: ‘You also are lucky,’ he said in all seriousness.

Violet pretended to be shocked as she noticed his erection. ‘Again, sweetie?’ She always called him ‘sweetie’ when she was being playful or flirtatious; it was a term she’d picked up from the American pictures. ‘So soon?’ But she giggled delightedly as she lay back on the bed. Violet loved making love.

And to think that such a woman was his wife, Pietro marvelled as he covered her body with his.

Pietro and Violet had been married for one month, but this was the first weekend they had spent together since their marriage and brief honeymoon in Sydney. Pietro’s trips into town were less frequent now as he worked harder and longer, signing on for extra rosters in his determination to make as much money as he could as quickly as he could. He intended to buy a house for Violetta.

Only Lucky and Maureen knew of their marriage. Lucky and Maureen had been their witnesses when they’d exchanged their vows at the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Cooma.

It had been Violet who had suggested they marry in secret, and despite his initial misgivings, Pietro had finally agreed. Particularly when even Maureen had told him it was the only path open to them.

‘But I must seek permission of Violetta’s father,’ he’d doggedly insisted.

‘We’ve already approached him and he won’t have a bar of it.’ Maureen’s reply had been brutally honest – it was time to put an end to Pietro’s fruitless persistence.

‘A bar?’ He’d been confused. A bar was where men drank beer.

‘He won’t let me marry you, Pietro,’ Violet had said, her tone as adamant as her aunt’s.

‘But he has not met me, your father. How can he …’

‘He’ll never let me marry you. Not for as long as he lives.’

Pietro had felt rather stupid as he’d suddenly guessed at the truth. Why hadn’t it occurred to him earlier?

‘This is because I am Italian, yes?’

Both women had nodded, and Pietro had been devastated. What did this mean? Sister Anna Maria had told him that if he ever wished to marry, he must seek permission from the father of his intended. Did this mean he could not marry Violetta?

‘So I will marry you without his permission,’ Violet had said.

He’d stared at her, speechless, and Maureen had interceded before he could argue further.

‘Violet is of age, Pietro. It is her decision to make, not her father’s. And she loves you very much.’ Following her confrontation with her brother, Maureen had been impressed by her niece’s strength and resolution. Violet had grown up, she knew her own mind.

‘Perhaps, when you are married, my brother might come to his senses and learn to accept you as his son-in-law,’ she’d said. ‘In the meantime, I will help you in whatever way I can.’ Then she’d left them alone in the kitchen.

‘Will you marry me, Pietro?’ Violet had asked.

From that day on, nothing else in the world mattered to Pietro. Violetta wished to be his wife.

Back at the work camp he’d asked the Roman Catholic priest, who visited Spring Hill weekly to conduct the mass and hear confession, if he would marry them. But the priest had said no. Violet was not a Roman Catholic.

‘You cannot marry a woman who is not of the Roman Catholic faith, my son.’ Father O’Riordan had spelled out the rules in no uncertain terms; he considered Pietro a rather simple young man. ‘The Church does not recognise such a union.’

Pietro hadn’t liked the priest’s peremptory tone.

If Violet were to convert, Father O’Riordan had said, then they could marry. But it would take some time, he warned. Violet would need to be instructed, she would need to learn her catechisms, then she would be baptised, after which she would take her first Holy Communion.

‘You must be patient, my son,’ he’d said in what he considered to be an understanding manner; he could sense Pietro’s annoyance. ‘You young people like to rush into things, but marriage is not something to be taken lightly.’

Both the comment and the priest’s patronising attitude had further annoyed Pietro. He did not take his marriage lightly at all.

‘I will ask someone else to marry us,’ he’d said abruptly.

Father O’Riordan’s response had been severely reprimanding.

‘I must warn you, Pietro, if you marry outside the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic faith, the Church will not recognise your union.’

‘Then that is how it must be.’

Father O’Riordan had assumed Pietro’s rebellion was the result of youthful impatience, but he’d been wrong.

Educated by the nuns at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Pietro had never questioned the teachings of the Church. Now he did. God did not belong to the Roman Catholics, he thought. God was everywhere. God belonged to everyone, and everyone belonged to God. God would bless his marriage, with or without the sanction of the Roman Catholic Church.

Violet, worried that he might regret his decision, said she would convert to Catholicism. She didn’t mind. ‘Really,’ she insisted.

But Pietro had made up his mind. ‘God is not a Roman Catholic,’ he’d said, and he would not be swayed.

Their honeymoon in Sydney had been the most thrilling event of Violet’s life. They’d caught the train in the morning, just an hour after the service at the Registry office and they’d held hands all the way. Violet was breathless with anticipation, admitting that she’d never been to Sydney before.

Pietro had booked a suite at the Australia Hotel and when they had arrived in the early evening they had been exhausted.

But after showering before dinner, they’d quickly discovered they were no longer tired. Nor were they hungry.

‘You are beautiful,’ Pietro said. He’d stepped out from the bathroom with a towel modestly tucked around his waist to discover Violet, who had showered before him, standing in nothing but her panties, surveying the selection of dresses she’d hung in the wardrobe. She hadn’t heard him – she was in a state of dilemma.

‘I don’t know what frock to wear,’ she said, worried. ‘I’ve never been to a posh restaurant before. Do you think it’ll be really dressy?’

He’d dropped the towel and taken her in his arms, and the frock dilemma had been forgotten.

‘I love you, Pietro,’ she said afterwards as they lay side by side on the crumpled bed. It had hurt a little to start with, but she’d known it would, and he’d been gentle. She’d heard that the first time was never any good, and she’d expected to be disappointed. But she hadn’t been. Sex agreed with Violet. It was everything she could have hoped for – and more.

‘I love you also, Violetta. I love you with the whole of my life.’

She wasn’t sure whether he meant with the whole of his heart or for the whole of his life, but it didn’t matter, it was the way he said it. She had never heard anything so romantic, not even in Casablanca.

They ordered room service – mountains of toasted sandwiches which they ate naked in bed, and chocolate milkshakes which they slurped noisily through their straws when they got to the bottom of the glass. Then they ordered two more. Violet thought it was all wonderfully worldly and decadent.

And they talked. They talked endlessly. About when they’d first met, how he’d come to Hallidays store just to look at her, and how he’d been so shy that she’d had to make the first move.

‘I bet you thought I was forward,’ she said. ‘Go on, I bet you did. I was one of those easy girls, that’s what you thought.’

‘No, no,’ he insisted, ‘I think that I cannot believe it. Already I am in love with this beautiful girl, and she wishes to walk with me? I am amaze.’

‘Amazed.’ She corrected him automatically, forgetting the schoolteacher voice.

‘Yes. I am amazed.’

‘That was the day I fell in love with you,’ Violet solemnly declared; she had decided that it was. ‘It was the way you said my name that did it.’

‘Violetta.’

‘I swooned.’ She put a melodramatic hand on her heart, and to emphasise the point dropped back on the bed, arms wide, in a mock faint, and he laughed. But then, whimsy quickly discarded, she sat bolt upright and said in deadly earnest, ‘It’s true, Pietro, I nearly did swoon, honest. It was the most romantic thing I’d ever heard. Until now,’ she added.

They talked of their first kiss, by the Snowy River at Dalgety, and the conversation took a more serious turn.

‘You’re very experienced, Pietro. How many women have you had?’ It was a direct question, but she felt as his wife she now had the right to ask.

‘I am no experience,’ he laughed, and she didn’t correct him. ‘I am near a virgin. I am with one prostitute in Milano, my friends they take me to her. I am no good,’ he smiled, ‘she is nice, she try to teach me, lento, lento, this mean slowly, but it is over,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘just like that.’

Then Violet found herself telling him about Craig McCauley, how she’d been repulsed by his mauling her behind the pavilion, but how she’d wanted to know what it would be like. How, when Pietro had kissed her by the river, she’d wanted him to go further. No topic was sacred to Violet now; she wanted him to know everything about her, and she wanted to know everything about him. She told him about her father, and the confrontation she’d overheard between him and Maureen.

‘He called you a Dago, Pietro,’ she said.

‘It is no matter.’ He cuddled her to him; she seemed upset. ‘I am called Dago many times. It is just a word, I pay no heed.’

‘And he said he’d kill you if I kept seeing you.’

It was difficult, Pietro thought, to pay no heed to a man who threatened murder, but he pretended to shrug it off and continued to comfort her.

‘It is words, Violetta, nothing more. Your father, he does not mean them.’

‘Yes, that’s what Auntie Maureen said. She said he’s just being protective.’

Pietro was relieved to hear it. ‘Of course that is so. He is a man and you are his daughter.’

‘I hate him.’

‘It is wrong to hate your father.’

‘Well, I do,’ she said rebelliously. Then, feeling much better at having unburdened herself, she decided it was Pietro’s turn. Apart from the convent, she knew nothing about his childhood, and Violet didn’t like mysteries. Besides, she thought, there should be no secrets between a husband and wife.

‘How old were you when your parents were killed in the war?’ she asked tentatively, hoping she wasn’t being insensitive.

‘I do not know exactly,’ he shrugged. ‘I think perhaps I am eleven.’

‘Then you must remember them.’ She was pleased that he didn’t seem to mind her asking, and she wanted to picture him as a little boy with his mother and father. ‘What were they like?’ she asked ingenuously. ‘I bet your dad was handsome like you – Italian men are so good-looking. And your mum probably looked like Gina Lollobrigida.’

‘I do not know what they look like. I cannot remember them.’

Then Pietro told her his story; he, too, believed there should be no secrets between a husband and wife. But there was so little to tell, he said, he only wished he could share more of his past with her.

Violet huddled on the bed, spellbound and incredulous. It was incomprehensible to her that Pietro had no memory of his early childhood.

‘That’s terrible,’ she said. ‘So you don’t even know if you have brothers and sisters?’

‘No. I know nothing. I wish that I did.’

‘You said there was a farm,’ she reminded him. ‘You told me that once. “Before Milano there was a farm”, that’s what you said.’

‘Yes, I remember the farm. Only a little. I cannot remember the house where I live, but I remember the mountains. So big.’ He looked up at the ceiling and gave one of his extravagant and all-encompassing gestures. ‘So big, more big than the Snowies. And I remember the pine forests in the valley and the flowers in spring. And in winter, all covered in snow. And I remember the river, and, near the river, my goats.’

Pietro felt no fear in recalling the goats – he was too eager to share whatever remnants of his childhood he could remember with Violet, who was listening, enthralled.

‘I love my goats,’ he said. ‘And I am good with them,’ he added proudly. He had been too – he could remember how they’d come to his call. ‘My goats they love me also. They stand very still when I milk them.’ His hands curled into gentle fists: he could see and feel the rubbery teats in his fingers.

It was the dangerously vivid image which had often, in the past, preceded a seizure, but Pietro felt no threat. He’d been meticulous in taking his medication each morning and evening and he’d had no warning signs for months now. He no longer wore the strip of leather hanging from its string around his neck, although he always kept it in his pocket. Whether as a safeguard, or because it had simply become a part of his life, he wasn’t sure.

Now, as he allowed himself to dwell on the images of the goats, smelling their rich animal odour, hearing their milk squirt against the side of the pail, he felt nothing but comfort in the memory.

‘I have a special goat, she is my favourite.’ He could see her, dun-coloured, gentle. Rosa was not mean-spirited as the others sometimes were. ‘Her name is Rosa. I deliver her baby.’ He saw his bloodied hand sliding out of the animal, the kid slithering along with it. But the image did not upset him. He heard Rosa bleating with the pain, he saw her raising her head off the ground, a further cry of relief, then the look of gratitude in her eyes as she lay back, exhausted. Rosa knew that he had helped her.

‘Violetta,’ he said excitedly. ‘I remember Rosa.’

‘Yes, you just said. She was your favourite, you delivered her baby.’

‘No, no, you do not understand. Never before do I remember Rosa. Is just now, here with you, that I remember her.’ Pietro was elated. ‘Is you, Violetta. Is you have done this.’

She didn’t know exactly what it was she had done, but she was happy that he seemed so excited by it.

‘Do you not see? I wish to share my past with you, and it is because of this that I remember Rosa.’

The significance suddenly dawned on Violet.

‘I will help you, Pietro,’ she said, and she hugged him with all the passion of her newborn purpose. ‘I will help you remember.’

Genuine as Violet’s fervour was, she couldn’t help imagining the scene as it would look on the screen. She would devote her life to helping her husband regain his past; it was the noblest cause imaginable. For a moment she was Bette Davis.

Pietro was unsure of the main source of his elation, whether it was the fragment of returned memory or the non-threatening image of the goats. But he related the two. He was free from his fits, he thought. He was free to remember without risking the onslaught of a seizure.

That was the one thing he had not shared with Violet. He had not told her about his epilepsy. He had felt wrong in not admitting to his illness before their marriage, but he had worried that Violet might not wish to marry him if she knew of it. Now a huge weight was lifted from his shoulders. He was not ill any more. His epilepsy was a thing of the past.

The next morning they’d walked down to Circular Quay and caught a ferry to Manly. Violet had categorically declared that there was nowhere in the world as beautiful as Sydney Harbour.

‘I know I haven’t actually been to other places,’ she’d said defensively, although he’d made no query, ‘but I’ve seen them at the pictures. I’ve seen Rome and Paris and London at the pictures, and I’ve seen New York too. And Sydney Harbour’s much prettier.’

At Violet’s insistence they’d visited Taronga Park Zoo and, on their return to the Quay, they’d explored The Rocks where, at a souvenir shop, Pietro had bought her a miniature statuette of the Harbour Bridge and a tiny stuffed koala like the ones she’d seen at the zoo. Violet had gawked in awe at the Harbour Bridge. ‘It’s even bigger than it is in the postcards,’ she’d said incongruously, but he’d known what she meant. The bridge had had much the same effect upon him when he’d first laid eyes on it. How long ago that seemed, he’d thought. And yet it wasn’t really. It was barely eleven months since he’d arrived in Sydney, and three weeks later he’d been on the train to Cooma. And now here he was, earning more money than he thought he’d see in a lifetime and married to the most beautiful girl in the world. Australia was most certainly the land of opportunity.

Upon his return to Spring Hill, many noted a change in young Pietro Toscanini. The boy had become a man. He was no longer withdrawn and there was an assurance in his manner. Several of his mates who knew that he’d spent the weekend in Sydney, made ribald comments about what he’d got up to in the big smoke. Pietro said nothing, but grinned good-humouredly.

‘Marriage suits you, Pietro,’ Lucky commented out of earshot of the others. ‘You’re a new man.’

‘Violetta, she has changed my life.’

Pietro said nothing to Lucky of the other factor that had changed his life, for he knew that if he told Lucky he was no longer ill, Lucky would insist he visit Maarten Vanpoucke, and Pietro had decided that there would be no more doctors. There would be no more pills either, he’d decided, and he stopped taking his medication – there was no need for it. He was healthy now, as normal as the next man, and he wanted no reminders of the illness and the shame that he’d put behind him.

 

Having refused Maarten’s offer of port with his coffee, Lucky was relieved that the evening was finally drawing to its conclusion. He’d conquered the fruit flan, although he now felt bloated, and he’d steered the conversation away from Pietro’s love life to an interesting discussion about the American contractors. Maarten had agreed that Kaiser would have an immense impact upon the region.

But now, draining his glass, the Dutchman again reverted to the topic of Pietro.

‘I am glad that young Pietro is happy in his personal life,’ he said, ‘it will help keep anxiety at bay and avoid triggers which could lead to a seizure. But I worry that he is perhaps being slack with his medication. I will check my records, but I’m sure he’s due for another script.’ He was about to reach for the port decanter.

‘I’ll have a word with him, I promise.’ Lucky rose from the table, it was time to make his escape. Maarten was labouring the point, determined to get drunk and eke out the evening. ‘Now, if you’ll forgive me, I really must go.’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ The Dutchman looked at the clock on the mantelpiece as he stood. ‘My goodness, I didn’t realise how late it was.’

As they stepped out onto the first-floor landing, they found Mrs Hodgeman’s son, Kevin, loitering uncertainly by the door. The housekeeper had retired, as she usually did when the doctor stayed up late, and it was invariably Kevin who cleared and washed the dishes.

The Dutchman nodded briskly. ‘You may clear the table.’

‘Goodnight, Kevin,’ Lucky said, and the gauche young man gave his bashful smile, a mixture of self-consciousness and pleasure.

The two men walked down the main staircase to the hall and shook hands at the front door.

‘Thank you, Maarten, for a most delightful evening.’

‘My pleasure indeed, we must do it again soon.’

‘And do thank Mrs Hodgeman for me. The food was magnificent.’

‘She’ll be delighted to hear it.’

As soon as the Dutchman had closed the door, Lucky took off at a sprint for Peggy’s house only several blocks away, where she lay dozing and dreaming and waiting for him.

Maarten Vanpoucke returned upstairs to the dining room.

Kevin was methodically placing the dessert plates and glasses onto the silver tray, wary of the delicate bone china and crystal, each movement painstakingly slow. He picked up the decanter.

‘Leave the port,’ Maarten said as he sat.

Kevin did, setting it down very carefully.

‘And the glass.’

Kevin’s eyes flickered between the two port glasses on the tray. Fortunately he could pick the one that was the doctor’s, as Lucky had not drunk any port. He replaced the glass on the table and left.

Maarten poured himself another port. He took off his spectacles and placed them on the table, rubbing eyes which felt weary, then he leaned back in his chair. There was such a lot to think about.

His mind returned to the woman in the photograph. Was Ruth still alive? It was quite probable. If so, he wondered where she was.