MIRIAM AND THE ROAD TO AREZZO.
MAURICE RONDON.
ther
A00-MOME
Miriam started work at the library with a clear head.
She would do it for as long as she wasn't married.
Then
she'd give it up and, for all she knew, never open a book
again. Yet she liked books.
She liked their feel, and
their warm smell when they were stacked together. But she
never really read one. 3he glancod through some, ling-
ered with others. She wanted---she didn't know what she
wanted: but something new, thet didn't pin you down, from
start to finish. Books seemod to promise this new something
but she didn't want to know too much.
She wanted it to
happen, in life.
The travel books caught her imagination most. 3he
yearned for a place where the sun shone, where the sea was
a donse blue and thore were shimmering, brown mountains
behind; a place where you could go barefoot, where you
didn't have to bother what to wear. She was quite happy
to bide her time. She was a rather fine-looking, strong
girl, with a. determined chin and winning, inquisitive,
slightly tomboyish eyes.
Yet she liked the dark Bradley streets.
She loved
walking home from the librery at night, after she'd cleared
up in the tiny cubicle allotted to her. The lamplights
had a curious intimate glow, her footsteps sounded very
sharp on the pavonent, everything wos 8o crisp and olear


in the winter. She could have skipped for joy just think-
ing of the cup of tea she was going to have, and the flicker
of the tele. Silly!
But she was wise enough to know that
the best joys are little ones.
She had a few girl-friends: on Friday nights she and a
girl called Ruth washed their hair together, at Ruth's place,
and on Saturdays they went to a Social at one of the local
halls.
She was tuenty-three.
Plenty of. time, as her mother
said.
The assistant-librarian was nice, and she'd got into
the habit of going to the Socials with himi He'd even started
calling at the house for her, to pick her up. Then he came
to tea, and talked to her father while she dressed.
He had
friendly eyes and an enormous curl of blond hair across his
head---his bang, she called it.
It annoyed her secretly,
that bang; it brought out the tomboyish glint in her eye.
And as they got familiar with each other she took to giving
it a little pull now and then, very playful---not a bit spite-
ful, and he always responded bravely, screwing up his eyes in
a laugh.
This touched her.
That was it: he was touching.
But not much more. They shared jokes together. At Christ-
mas he kissed her under the mistletoe.
And she let her mother
and father think they were to be married.
Then the something-new happened. Her father worked at
a local engineering firm and told her that a group of young
Italians had come over for a study course.
The following
week she was introduced to one of them, Giuseppe Prato.
It was as quick as that.
All of a sudden the travel books


she'd been glancing at, the blue sea and the mountains, her
irritation with Cyril's bang, all fell into place. Life
was serious at last!.
She wasn't in love. At least, it didn't seem like that.
She had noapicture of Italy.
She'd never felt romantically
about it.
AS a mat ter of fact, it was the only country she
hadn't read much about. Nor was Giuseppe the proverbial
Italian. His hair wasn't very dark, he had rather light
eyes and he moved his arms about very little. He didn't
fling himself on her.
There was something about him---a kind of passiveness---
that appealed to her.
He seemed to accept things so wonder-
fully. Everything. And so quietly.
Things seemed to flow
round him, and he had a quiet, benevolent curiosity about it
all. He.was so clear, 9 so right in his instincts.
There was
nothing unhealthy, nothing even slightly twisted or strange
about him.
She felt there was a natural way of behaving,
and that he had it.
He was never too tired to oblige other people.
wasn't shy, yet he wasn't assertive either.
There seemed to
be a method in everything he did, but it wasn't thought-out;
it was just natural.
He was the calmest person she'd ever
met.
He was like a clear pool inside. He watched every
movement she made with his flickering, brown, drowsy eyes,
and he seemed to know every line and curve in her face.
Yet he was never familiar. She wouldn't have dared pull
his hair---she shuddered even to think of it! And yet she
could touch him as freely as she liked. Much more so than


with Cyril.
There wasn't that embarrassment of touch.
He seemed to admire her terrifioally. As a person.
He gazed at her thick brown hair that always looked slightly
bleached as if she'd just been at the sea, and at her chin,
which she always pushed forward in an argument, making him
smile.
He was so mild---yet she found this mildness more
masculine than anything she'd known before. His calm seemed
to be born in him---in his glands and tissues, hidden, and
it didn't leave him even when he got excited, which he did
now and then, out of.what she recognised as jealousy. He
disliked her seeing Cyril.
It rankled with him that they
Worked together. And she didntt even mind this jealousy.
Beeause that, again, was natural.
It was part of love.
She realised that for the first time. It was a comfort,
knowing what was natural, what you needntt be ashamed of.
So she let him press for marriage.
In the old-fash-
ioned way. he went to her father, who looked astonished and
uncomfortable, having, as he told her afterwards with a wink,
proposed to her mother over a game of cards.
Tithin five weeks they were sailing for Genoa, married.
Giuseppe chose the sea-trip bec au se he wanted the rest: he
would have to buckle down to work again as soon as they
arrived, there was no time for a honeymoon. He was called
ingegnere very respectfully by the other Italians in his -
group: he'd given ten years of his youth to study, he. told
her.


They docked at Genoa on a hot, still day, and a cousin
of his was waiting for them just beyond the customs' huts,
standing in the shade, seeming submerged in it.
The heat
was immense, like a great static breath, with the sea like
a blue pool as far as the eye could see. She lagged behind
him gazing at everything---gasping, almost, because it was
like walking into one of the books she'd glanced at, a book
about the desert.
It was much more powerful. than anything
she'd imagined, though.
It just snatched hold of her, the
great breath, of heat sucked her in, she was lost---that was
how she felt.
And she was immensely and desparately happy.
Giuseppe glanced at her as they' walked along, blinking at
her doubtfully as if it might not be good enough for her.
The three of them were a orowd in the cousin's tiny, car.
The cousin didn't address her directly, only stared at her
with black eyes, and when he asked a question in Italian
Giuseppe replied as briefly as possible, wiping the sweat
off his neck with a handkerchief.
"It's so hot!" he said.
"I love it!"
There was a long drive to Arezzo, where Giuseppe had
his family.
She S queezed his hand and he looked at her
sideways inthe back of the car, still with his doubtful
look.
But most of the time she was absorbed in what was
going on outside---there was the flurry and fuss of the
little cars trying to pass each other on the narrow road;
even driving a car was something different here: And there
was the dust, the black diesel-fumes from the buses and


lorries, the neat railway crossings, the strange shouts
of people at the side of the road, the sudden drops on
either side into wonderful valleys of vaneyards and olive
trees, then the untidy factories which seemed to have none
of the grimness of Bradley ab out them.
Giuseppe went on nodding to his cousin, clicking his
tongue lazily to denote a negative, raising his eyebrows
slightly to show - surprise, as if words were now a pain to
him, He only:really spoke once, to join his cousin in
shouting at an old woman who'd stepped into the road with-
out looking and made them skid to a stop. She thought this
easy contact with people was marvellous---even the hostility
had something intimate about it, nothing dangerous. The
old woman just looked a bit ashamed, a bit angry, then
walked on, giving them a slight contemptuous jerk of her
shoulder.
She felt she'd been waiting for this kind of thing all
her life---a place where people's feelings were on the sur-
face!
Suppose she'd never'met Giuseppe?
When this thought
went through her mind she blushed with panic e
She would write her mother a sixteen-page letter that
ev ening. And thank the library for giving her a little
send-off party. Ruth had cried at the station. All
this : seemed so strange to her now that she could hardly
remember her name o
It felt as if just her body wa S trav-
elling along. She was free!
There was nothing round her,
absolutely nothing, that she could call familiar.
"I must learn Italian," she told Giuseppe, feeling


the lack of conversation with his cousin, who was sitting
bolt upright behind the steering wheel like a man in church.
"How do I say that in Italian?"
".Devo imparare italiano,' # he said in a clear, mild voice.
She repeated this to the cousin as best she could and
he nodded in a quick, frightened way, saying "Brava, brava !" a
then giving a panic-stricken glance at Giuseppe.
It was sweltering hot by now---the ship had docked at
noon---and the sun beat down on the roof of the car. The
heat seemed to make all her muscles free for the first time,
she felt she could move her face properly, she was herself
for the first time in her life!
It was like the heat that
brings a flower to full bloom.
Even her voice had changed.
It had got deeper, so it seemed to her. Even in that short
time since they left Genoa.
They drove quickly through Florence, Which was shuttered-
up and empty in the afternoon siesta.
Giuseppe promiedd to
bring her back there as soon as possible, and he pointed out
all the buildings quickly, without real pleasure: the cath-
edral that looked so odd to her with its thick stripes, the
deserted square with the statue of David in the corner.
a funny way she felt she'd been yearning for that sort of
town all her life, and that she'a known about it without ever
having had a picture of it in her mind.
Then they were suddenly in Arezzo, grinding and whining
up the hill to the narrow, mediaeval streets above the town.
And there was the house, squeezed between others, shuttered
and tall, with all the famous monumenta of the town close


by---all the 'dead' part of the town, Giuseppe said. But
for her it was the liveliest place she'd ever seen.' The
car-hooter brought the family running out and there were
tears and shouts and hugs for half-en-hour or more .
There was a great family party that evening.' The house
was cavernous and cool with painted ceilings and bare rooms, -
some of them with no furniture at all, though they didn't
give an impression of bareness for a moment. Everything
echoed with noise, there were flashes of blinding evening
light from outside.
Giuseppe's mother was in black, rather
tall and plump with a long, fine nose, her face always raised
calmly, gazing at other people : His father had died some
years before and there was a pieture of him on the wall with
a dusty laurel wreath at the top. And there were several
younger sisters, with a crowd of others who were called
vaguely relatives, most of them in black as well.
They
smiled at her distantly yèt protectively, backed away when
she wanted to pass, sometimes looked into her face with a
sudden intimate curiosity.
The men were rather slim and
sharp, with pale faces, and they drank the wine that was poured
them in a gingerly way, with dry, pursed lips, as if they
were afraid of offending.
of course, the language-trouble made it hopeless.
They
sat at a long table in one of the least bare rooms, where
there was a hideous polished sideboard they were evidently
proud of, and a huge cake'came in from a shop.
The red
wine was from their own fields, Giuseppe told her, with his


curious lack of enthusiasm; everything the others said
seemed to pass over him and his eyes always returned to her
with their doubtful look, as if she might get up and run
away a
They had a vineyard outside the town, he said, and
one day he wanted to build a house there, just for the two
of them and their children.
The air was always fresh there,
he added.
He sat with his hands cupped together, leaning
his elbows on the table, talking quietly, while everybody
looked at him with trememdous respect, because of the foreign
languege being spoken.
Then a sistarp came over to him and
put her arms round his neck, kissing him softly on the cheek,
and asked shyly what he'd just said. But he only shook his
head, making the negative littlo click of his tongue as he'd
done in the car, and smiling at her wanly and briefly.
Miriam's face got red from the wine. She laughed and
leaned on him. But he seemed too uncomfortably C onscious
of his own family to really let himself go. The cousi in
who had driven them kept close to her like a bodyguard and
tried to give the others the impression that he understood
everything she said.
She was determined to learn Italian---she'd do it in
a week! And in a week she did get quite a long way. At
the end of it she could talk with the women in the kit tchen,
using her hands a lot. And she stayed in her room for an
hour or 80 every day with her grammar book. He'd fitted
her up with a little room overlooking the cobbled yard at
the back; so that she could escape the women if she wanted
to, he said.


She found herself with the women quite a lot. They
were so childish---but childish in the way all adult human
beings should be, she thought - Nothing was too si imple for
them. She felt she could say anything that came into her
heads And yet only simplo little thoughts came into her
head, such as that it was hot, or she felt hungry, or she
would like a cake from the local bar.
Two of the sisters. took her for a walk down the main
street in the evening, obviously very proud of her.
The
street was always clear of traffic for the evening hours
and contained one mass of jostling, laughing, strolling,
talking people from one end to the other.
It excited her
so much the first time that she could hardly talk, only
feed her eyes a But they wanted her to talk.
If she said
nothing they thought she was bored.
Everything had to be
on the surface here.
That was a bit tiresome. She could
have no thoughts to herself; apparently she wasn't supposed
to have, either.
The letter to her mother wasn't written until the second
week.
And then. she only wrote two pages.
It was all too
overwhelming for her to put into words. Bradley was almost
forgotten.
Those brisk, thrilling streets, the faint smell
of fish and chips on the corner, the sound of the trolley bus 9
it was all less vivid to her now than a dream: : i7ho was she?
All she seemed to have was a name
He was quite worried the first week---did she like the
tom? was the house clean enough? (it was spotless) -
did she find his family...? And there he stumbled and


couldn't find his words. What did he mean? she asked.
Well, did she find his family a bit---simple, primitive?
"Simple, yes!" she said with that determination in her
chin. "And I wish. everybody in the world was like that!"
He gave her a little look of surprise and smiled, and
it seemed to make him easier.
They wrote letters to her
parents together---he sent best wishes to the boys at her
father's works. He put a carpet and a little table in her
room, and gave her an Italian lesson there every evening
before supper, after he came in from the office. People
worked late in Italy: from four until about eight or some-
times nine in the evening 6
After lunch Giuseppe always
slept.
The bedroom was just a place to sleep---an iron bedstead
and a narrow strip of carpet at the side like a piece of
canvas.
He flung himself down at night and was asleep at
once. She realised she'd been brought up on the idea that
the bedroom is a sanctuary. So she started putting more
and more things in her own room.
She bought silk covers--
the silk was really good and cheap in Italy---, a terracotta
jar for branches, and a chair with a leather backrest that
was supposed to come from a monastery.
The women thought
it odd that she should collect branches and stand them in
a jar; they watched her with a funny, intimidated expression
when she cut the stems at the bottem iand stood them in
glyoerine to preserve the leaves.
The trip to Florence materialised after two months or
so. They spent a couple of hours there. Giuseppe used


the visit to go to a contractor's office, while she went
round the Palazzo Pitti with a guide-book in. her hand;
then they raced back for dinner.
He had to work so hard. At the same time it was his
passion. Perhaps his only real one. It began to make
her sad. She was a bit like one of his sisters for him
now. He answered her with a little click of his tongue
now :
But he called out her name every evening from the
courtyard under her window, when he got out of the car---
"M-ee-riam, M-ee-riam!", with that slight Italian intonation
she'd come to love. There were other things than passion,
she thought.
There were the little animal pleasures--- sit-
ting in the spring sun, eating. She began to get careless
in her appearance.
The noises outside began to keep her awake at night.
Lorries thumped and roared on the road below. But Giuseppe
didn't seem to notice. She was alone as she'd never been
in her life before, butuat the same time less lonely: it
was strange.
He seemed to love his charts and designs most. It
was their order he loved.
He seemed to feel that there was
no order in the real world, in his world---only a kind of
easy, harmonious mess. And it was true. The meals just
drifted into being, the straw brooms went over the tiled
floors lazily, as 1f by accident; the women gave off such
a feeling of passiveness, as limp as their hendshakes.


If one of the sisters got a little cut pandemonium broke
out---the whole world was about to fall and there was no
hope for it. She began to understand Giuseppe's love for
his charts.
They vere clear, predictable---hopeful.
He-couldn't bear jet-black hair, he told her. He
couldn't bear 'Italian' beauty---the olive skin and slight
plumpness.
That was part of the same thing. He admired
her for her clean, almost-bleached hair, her light eyes,
her obstinate, clear-cut chin, her cheerful replies.
But he learned to love jet-black hair when she gave birth
to a son as dark as a little Neapolitan. There he showed
passion: He adored Franco with a kind of drugged, helpless
fascination. He rushed in every evening to play with him.
There was an intimacy between father and son she'd never séen
before---a good bit more than some mothers gave in her own
world. Franco was like a little king in the house. Nothing
he did succeeded in irritating anybody. He was the first
name on everybody's lips in the morning and the last at night.
He commanded attention the moment he spoke. And he was as ton-
ishingly mature for his age. She realised that a child was
a grown-up in embryo, with the same passions and angers and
rights, only on a smaller stage.
There was no order in him,
either. He climbed all over her, and she allowed 1t, drift-
ing along with the others.
Her relation with the women hadn't really developed since
the day she arrived.
She was---a woman. And that was that.
She cooked, sewed, nursed the child. - No more was asked of
her. Nor was any more supposed to exist in her. Nor was


it her right to ask for any more. She was just a woman.
One of the sisters got married---the nicest one---and
Miriam kept. to her room more and more, taking Franco with
her. Sometimes she flared up in the silence---she wasn f
just a woman! The other women seemed to feel this sl ight
mute rebellion. And they would peep into her room with
silly expressions, as if they were looking for something,
then make a sickly smile and go avay. Just as if she was
an object!
They seemed to sniff at her! How stupid! she
said to herself.
Then Giuseppe looked in one evening with the same look.
The women had been 'talking' to him. She nearly jumped out
of her skin when she saw that same narrow, disrespectful
look on his face. One of his sisters had told him there
must be a man she sas signalling to from her window every
day---what else Would a woman want with being alone? A
man: She flared up and began shouting at him in English---
all her loneliness of the last few months poured out of her
while he stood in the doorway shifting his feet about in a
frightened way o
The women c ame running heavily up. His
mother was in her shapeless black gown that seemed to announce
the death of sex, and her hands. were covered with flour from
making fettuccine.
Then Miriam burst into tears.
The
sisters started crying, too.
They wept on each other's
shoulders. Yes, yes, she was a straniera, a foreigner,
she must be so lonely, yes, yes! And it all ended downs ta irs
in the kitohen (where the women hadwanted her all along---
she was aware of their victory even through her misty eyes).


But her mute rebellion grew, and she began to feel
a prisoner in the house. He nearly always went out alone---
there was a contractor to see, a discussion at the local
café.
And he must always go to the café alone: it was a
man's place, he said, much as he deplored it. She could
go on Sundays, with him and the child, for a few minutes:
everybody did the same. But the idea of her sitting in a
café alone---even with one of the sisters---was so ludicrous
that she didn't question it: it was just one of the laws.
The nights got worse for her: she was sensitive to
every sound---the sounds she'd thought so natural and easy
at the beginning.
People would come and 'talk8---shout---
in the street outside, in the dead of the night.
The lorries
thumped and roared on the roadway below. She began to yearn
for those little considerations people show to each other,
and which make life exciting. But there she was---a woman;
Giuseppe was a man---and there was nothing further to explore.
They'd explored everything.
There was just eating, sleeping,
church on Sundays, the bell that tolled for the dead, a little
walk on Saturdays with the eyes of the young men all over her
as if they'd never seen a woman before. And everything so
closed---80 little real talk, so little exploration!
Yet she loved it still---she loved the cavernous rooms
and the smell of frying garlic in the morning, the scent of
the blive groves from outside the town, the maize hanging to
dry in the courtyard below, the long, red tomatoes left to
ripen in the sun, the rich smell of the wine casks when they


arrived. full from the country in October.
Her father set the flame to the haystack without meaning
to. He wrote saying that they wanted to see her and that he'd
saved up enough money to pay for air-tickets for her and the
child, if Giuseppe could pay for his. They must come for
Christmas.
There was to be no discussion, he said---he'd
set his heart on it.
Of course, she ran to Giuseppe with the
news, terrifically excited.
The trip would change everything:
But he was rather numb, a bit removed. He wasn't excited in
the least.
The thought of seeing her father again didn't seem
to excite him---even interest him. Yet he was always talking
about Bradley to his friends.
There was just no excitement at
meeting other people.
Other people, it seemed, didn't have
the power of surprise: they were your 'mother' or your 'father'
or your 'wife'---all finished and set and without any surprises.
The basic thrill and excitement of life was missing.
It cast
a drowsy indifference over everything, and she felt limp,
helpless---as the women looked.
He began to give her reasons against the trip, with a kind
of pout. He couldn't leave his work, for one thing. And then
the journey: surely that was bad for the child?
The journey
might upset him. A child? she asked. He'd be thtflled!
She said it with her chin pushed forvard. But Giuseppe was
afraid of the motion of the plane, and the women were even more
afraid.
Then the 'change', 9 he said---the child might not like
that, either.
It was so cold in Bradley. Freezing! And
the women shuddered.


So she took a bus to Siena and bought two air-tickets
with the money her father had sent her.
Then she returned
to the house without a word to, anybody.
A few days before Christmas she broke the news---she was
going---and all hell broke lose. He shouted, almost cried,
walked up and down her room frantically, bit his finge rs in
a strange way, made little crooning noises; all she could do
was to watch him spellbound. It was a side she'd never seen
before.
But the women seemed to take it for granted.
And
at the end of the scene he sudd enly looked at her with exhaust-
ed, olear eyes and said, "Where did you get the money?"
"From my father."
"I'm sorry we can't go this time, M-ee-riam!"
"But I am going!" she cried.
Again he broke lose. She couldn't go, he said, becase
she was now Italian.
It was agains t the law.
Italian women
could only leave their country with their husband's consent.
They could only get a passport with the ir husband's consent.
If they left the conjugal roof they were committing an offence;
a husband could do it but not a wife.
That was Italian law.
And all she did when he told her this was to give him
a quiet look of contempt. And to her surprise that worked.
He blinked and looked away, and said, "All right, M-ee-riam,
go if you want to."
And. he went downstairs to tell the
women not to mention the subject again.
She expected the women to resent her but they didn't;
there was even a tinge of new respect.
She'd asserted her-


self successfully, as perhaps they'd wanted to a thousand
times.
She and Franco flew over on the morning of Christmas
Eve.
Bradley was crisp and exciting, she was thrilled by
the cosy, glowing lights in the shops, the Christmas tree
in the department store and the Father Christmas who handed
Franco a little parcel out of a bin glittering with tinsel,
There was even a fall of snow.
Franco began to talk English,
inexplicably.
She watched television with him every evening---
it seemed to full of interest and curiosity about other people:
Above all, she was doing things again. She was talking
and being listened to. She could sit in her favourite tea-
room with Ruth for an hour---two---if she wanted to! She took
Franco to two pantomimes, she spent three whole afternoons get-
ting presents, going by taxi.
There was no noise at night.
The world seemed to sleep peacefully.
People were so consider-
ate. You could actually cross the road without being afraid
for your life!
She went to the library and spent a Whole afternoon talk-
ing to Cyril. Ruth had married, and the plan was for her and
her husband to spend Christmas at Miriam's place. They pulled
crackers, found two sixpences in the Christmas pudding, ate
mince-pies at tea-time, filled a stocking for Franco---she'd
forgotten just how exciting life could be in all these intimate
little things.
Christmas passed and she found she couldn't bear to leave:


not just yet. She wrote to Giuseppe saying she wanted to
stay just a month moré, to get back her 'old spirit'.
The
letter wrote itself really, and she posted it with a blind
feeling, little realising what a huge decision she'd just
made.
He wrote back at once---a sad, quiet letter. To her
surprise he told her to stay longer: he was making 'changes',
and he would write to ber about them later on. Meanwhile he
sent her all his love---they would be happy together now.
She was puzzled, but her new life was too full for it to
bother her long. She bustled about all day helping her mother,
seei ing Ruth, going to the library, fitting Franco up with new
clothes.
One sentence in Giuseppe's letter puzzled her most:
'you vere right', he'd said.
The weeks passed quickly. But she began to yearn for
the suh; that was the first thing. She missed that glow
outside her window like a great golden bell hanging there
nearly every morning when she W oke up o
nd the courtyard
with its cobbles, the taste of red wine, the veal cooked in
Marsala, the egg-plant baked with mozzarella cheese... She
was a forgeiger here, too: she realised that.
When she
touched the vegetables at the market, which everybody did
in Italy, the man shot her an offended glance.
when she
asked a shop 1f they could send a boy to the house with her
shopping bag they stared at her as if she was mad. No,
they didn't 'deliver'!
Some shops 'delivered', others
didn't.
It seemed to be all rules here! And she felt a


flush of indignation like tho one she'd felt against the
women, How stupid! But what World did she belong to?
Giuseppo went on writing her letters. For him, for
his family, she'd walked out. But he didn't blame, her for
this.
In every letter he said she was 'quite right'. Che'd
walked out on the old, 'dead' Italy. He didn't like the life
there himself, and he'd always felt it wouldn't be good enough
for her, he said.
She felt like replying, 'No, no, no, how
wrong you are', but she left it; she was too tired.
She
wrote about other things instead.
Then suddenly, one chill,
grey morning, she got an express letter from saying that he'd
managed to contact someone who knew of jobs in England, and
he hoped to be seeing her soon.
She panicked---he was C oming
to England---! She rushed to the post office and telegraphed
him to keep his job, she was coming back wit th Franco at once.
Then she started packing, in a frenzy, with her mother helping
her. But while she was in the middle of it a message came
from the librery---someone was phoning her from Italy. It
was Giuseppe. He'd clinched everything, he said, he was
flying over in a few days and she must stay Where she was *
She tried to argue but he said it was too late, the contract
had been signed. For five years.
In Preston. A house went
with the job, She could have wept on the spot, and she dragged
her feet home and sat for an hour in the front room crying
her eyes out, with Franco holding her hand.
There! She'd
done itt
She'd done it now! And she did so love Italy:
The absurd part of it was that Giuseppe was extraordinarily


grateful to her. It was a fine job he'd got himself, he
told ier at the airport---one he wouldn't have dared dream
about even a month before. And dhe'd done it for him,
really!
The house in Preston was small and pleasant, with a
garden. Giuseppe looked round at everything with curiosity.
Just as she loved the heat he loved the cold: And the order
fascinated him---his cheque arrived like clockwork at the end
of the month, he admired the smooth, quiet way Englishmen
worked, never doing more than was good for them. He began
to look on her as a person again, with a new respect; he
actually asked her what she'd been doing in the day. And
they went out together---to friends, or the theatre. He was
everything she wanted hin to be. A little bit tamed perhaps..
But after all he was a foreigner here.
She found herself going to the local library a lot, and
then---after a word from Bradley, through Cyril---they offered
her a pert-timo job. It completed her new life as a whole
person, not just a woman. Once again she stacked books and
pinned the new dust-jackets on a felt notice-board.
She
actually began reading the travel books from cover to cover.
She 'devoured' them, Giuseppe said. And Italy was the subject
she devoured most. She was astonished how she could have lived
in Arezzo all that time without seeing the Piera della Francesca
frescoes, which were supposed to be some of the finest things
in Italy, or Petrarch's birthplace.
At its best, their life was like a dream, pleasant and


exciting. It left a strange yearning, that was all.
Cometimes---it was a quick, shamefaced idea that came and went---
she felt she wasn'6 appreciated enough, just as a woman.
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