Chapter 2 Fon
Fon
Plumes of red dust billowed into the evening sky as they sped along the dirt track, bones rattling over the hard ruts as they headed for the water tower.
Several goats were standing atop the crumbling drystone wall along the far edge of the Parisis’ olive grove.
Fon’s eyes travelled over the ancient trees, their branches already growing heavy with fruit.
It was going to be another good harvest this year.
Their father would be pleased – bumper crops were good news for the trappito.
Dante pulled hard on the wheel as they approached the corner, the old Fiat skidding on the dry earth and sending up more red clouds in their wake.
Fon could see two figures ahead, silhouetted against the sunset; they were leaning against the wall but they stood up as the car hurtled towards them.
The shorter one flicked away his cigarette as Dante finally hit the brakes, the lighted butt curving an arc into the dust.
‘Wait here,’ Dante said, cutting the engine and jumping out before Fon could say a word.
He watched his brother stride over to where the men were waiting.
They wore rough working clothes and their faces were in shadow, but he recognized them – Francesco Romano, tall and thin with his lop-shouldered stance from an old fighting injury, and Pablo Carrieri, older and bow-legged.
Fon watched as Pablo handed over a small package, which Dante examined for a moment before tucking it into his jacket pocket.
His brother had returned from Rome with a new swagger.
It was the second year running that their father had sent him to stay with cousins for a few days to explore job opportunities beyond the Mezzogiorno; ever since the end of the war, the poor had been draining in vast numbers from the ‘land of grain and pasture’ and heading for the industrial north or emigrating to Australia and Argentina.
Last year Dante had only been gone a week, but this time he’d landed the job as a film extra and three days had turned into three months.
It wasn’t fame or fortune that had turned his head, though.
For the first time, he’d told Fon as they lay in their beds in their shared room, he had seen the power – ‘real power’ – that came with money.
It bought luxury and women, but more than that, it bought respect, something that had been in short supply for the Giannellis for far too long.
They lived in the casino vecchio – the ‘old place’, on a plot behind the grand Villa Blanca.
At two hectares it was one of the port’s largest plots, but the soil was especially poor and barely allowed them to grow more than their family’s requirements of fava beans, artichokes and tomatoes.
They grazed a few animals for milk and cheese.
Their house, a low, blocky building crazed with cracks and now more black than white, had been falling into steady dilapidation for the past fifty years despite their father tirelessly fishing the seas during the summers and working through the nights in winter at the trappito.
Nothing he did was ever quite enough to pull his family from the gaping maw of poverty.
Rome had opened Dante’s eyes to new possibilities, and ever since his return he had been throwing around words like ‘venture’ and ‘opportunity’.
The world was changing, and la dolce vita had taken hold of the popular imagination far beyond Italy’s borders.
Films like Roman Holiday had brought the lushness and heat of the Mediterranean to the grey horizons of Britain and America; now tourists were coming over in record numbers, and Dante intended to cater to them.
The motorboat, he had said, was only the start of his enterprises.
His business concluded, Dante turned away from the two men and came back to the car with a satisfied look.
‘Let’s eat,’ was all he said as he turned on the motor.
‘What were you talking about?’ Fon asked, watching Pablo and Francesco slip between the trees and disappear into the shadows of the grove.
‘They’re just running some errands for me.’
‘Parisi’s men?’ This land belonged to Rafaella’s family, and Fon’s sense of unease deepened.
‘Why not? They’re earning a little extra on the side,’ Dante shrugged, casting him an unapologetic look. ‘It’s not my fault if old Emilio doesn’t pay his labourers a living wage.’
Fon’s gaze fell to the package in his brother’s jacket, but Dante didn’t seem to care about it being a secret any more than he cared to explain.
There was a gap of three and a half years between them, but to Fon it felt more like thirteen.
They both had strong, distinctive Roman noses but Dante’s was topped and tailed by a heavy brow and fleshy lips that sent women into a spin.
Fon, although tall, was lanky and fairer than he wanted to be.
He felt like a pale imitation, lacking intensity – a watercolour to his brother’s oil painting.
He had a feeling he would never catch him up.
‘Look, it’s your girlfriend,’ Dante muttered, jogging Fon hard with his elbow as they whisked through the tall stone pillars marking the entrance to the Parisi agricola.
Rafaella, coming up the road, stood on the pedals of her bike.
She looked startled by their speed coming down the hill.
For a moment their eyes locked, and Fon felt that sickly, tingling feeling that always fired up in his stomach when she looked his way.
In the next instant she was far behind them. He knew she had just come off her shift at the beach caffè; he had asked her to go out for gelato later, but she’d declined. Something about helping her sister with her trousseau.
‘Hmm, those legs,’ Dante murmured appreciatively, looking back at her in his rear-view mirror. ‘She’s becoming a swan at last … No wonder you’re so keen.’
‘I’m not keen,’ Fon muttered sullenly. If a lifetime as Dante’s brother had taught him anything, it was never to reveal his true heart’s desire. It gave others too much leverage.
‘No?’ Dante shrugged. ‘OK, fine. I’ll have her myself, then.’
‘No!’ His sudden vehemence made Dante laugh, and Fon realized he’d been baited.
But Rafaella wasn’t like the other local girls.
She was thoughtful, reserved, kind – that rare thing, a good listener in a world of talkers – and she deserved better than to be one of his brother’s many conquests.
She wasn’t chasing after a husband or going with the first guy to get a scooter.
She had ambitions of her own beyond marriage and motherhood, although she’d told him she wanted three children ‘at the very least’.
She wanted to be a writer or a teacher too, she’d confided in him once, laughing shyly as she said it, aware that it was an impossible dream.
They both knew women around here didn’t have careers.
But as Fon had listened, he’d found he wanted to make it happen for her – even if, as a fisherman’s son, that was his own impossible dream.
Dante looked over at him with a wolfish grin. ‘Think you’ll be her first?’
‘Oh my God, stop!’
Dante laughed. ‘I mean, I’m happy to put in a good word for you if you think it’ll help.’
Fon stared out the window. He knew his brother could steal almost any girl with a single look. He also knew that when Dante was his age, he’d been getting far past chaste kisses; he had already proved himself a man.
‘Hey, I’m only looking out for you, little brother,’ Dante said, shoving his arm hard. ‘It’s the ones like her you have to watch out for.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘She’s a tease.’
‘She’s not a tease.’
‘No? So she’s putting out?’
Fon looked away, refusing to dignify the question with a response. Still, he could feel the shame burning in his cheeks at his apparent ‘failure’ to make Rafaella his.
Dante smirked, leaning towards him slightly. ‘I hate to break it to you, Fon, but she’s going to keep holding out. Shall I tell you why?’
Despite himself, Fon heard himself ask the question. ‘Why?’
‘Because she thinks she’s better than you. Thinks she can do better.’
Do better? The spectre of Cosimo Franchetti flashed through his mind.
Rafaella had never brought up her friendship with the dashing duke’s son, but Fon had seen them together countless times over the years, observing from a distance.
He had noticed the way her eyes sparkled when the Franchettis came back to the port each summer.
‘Rafaella doesn’t think like that,’ he murmured.
‘Her father owns the biggest olive grove for ten miles. We have six goats. She does.’ Dante caught him with a knowing look and held it. Fon was about to ask why the same bad luck didn’t apply to him, then; but it didn’t seem to matter to women if a man was poor when he had the face of a prince.
‘But don’t worry, things are going to change.’ Dante winked, reading his mind, just as he had Fon’s whole life. ‘They’re already changing. Soon she’s going to be begging you to stick it to her.’
Fon ignored his brother’s crassness as he looked back at him. ‘Because of Allegra, you mean?’ He had seen Rafaella watching them from the beach earlier, standing on the sand with Gina as Dante put the boat through its paces. Had she liked it? ‘Will you let me take her out on it?’
Dante shrugged. ‘Perhaps – one day. Let’s not run before we can walk, eh?
It’s an expensive toy. We can’t afford any accidents.
’ His finger tapped the steering wheel lightly, one arm leaning on the open window, his hair catching the breeze as they cruised through the woodland and back down the hill towards the port.
He had a way of driving a Fiat like it was a Ferrari.
Swagger.
‘Where have you been?’ Monica Giannelli demanded as her elder sons walked into the kitchen.
‘Sorry, Mamma,’ Fon said, kissing her cheek on his way past to the tap.