Looking for Alibrandi Read Free

walls are done by us. The photos on the mantelpiece are of us, give or take a few of my cousin Robert’s family.
    On the wall near the television there’s a poster we had done at a St. Alfio’s feast when I was seven. It reads “Josephine and Christina’s Place.” It’s a bit worn at the sides but I know that it’ll have to fall off the wall in tatters before we ever get rid of it.
    Mama was poking round in the kitchenette.
    “And I suppose you couldn’t cook anything?” she asked, looking into the oven.
    “Maaaa,” I wailed. “I am studying, or has that escaped your attention?”
    She opened one of the top cupboards and I closed my eyes, knowing that the pots and pans I had crammed in there were going to fall out.
    “All I ask is that you have something ready in the afternoons. Even something defrosted,” she snapped, placing them back tidily.
    “Yeah, yeah.”
    “Don’t ‘yeah, yeah’ me, Miss. Now clear that table and set it.”
    “You went to Nonna’s, didn’t you? You’re always in a crappy mood when you go to your mother’s.”
    “Yes, I went to Nonna’s, Josephine, and what’s this about you and your friends driving around Bondi Junction half-dressed last week?”
    “Who told you that?”
    “Signora Formosa saw you. She said you and your friends almost ran her over. She told Zia Patrizia’s next-door neighbor and it got back to Nonna.”
    The telephone company would go broke if it weren’t for the Italians.
    “She’s exaggerating. We’d just come from the beach and Sera was driving us home.”
    “How many times have I told you that I don’t want you riding around in Sera’s car?”
    “The same number of times that Nonna has told you to tell me that.”
    “Don’t answer back, and clear the table,” she snapped. “Now. This very minute. This very second.”
    “Are you sure you don’t mean in an hour?”
    “Josephine, you are not too old to be slapped.”
    It mostly ends up that way in the afternoons. My grandmother’s meddling could put Mother Teresa in a bad mood. As much as Mama says that she doesn’t care what Nonna says, she takes every word to heart.
    I don’t exactly help out much, but sometimes I do decide to start anew and do the right thing with her. Though just when I want to sit down and have my time with Mama, she’ll be too tired or she’ll want to go to bed or, worse still, she’ll want to spring-clean the house. Sometimes I wonder if my mother loves housework more than me.
    “Don’t open that cupboard,” I said, too late. Tea bags, onions and potatoes came tumbling out.
    So we’ve got a tiny kitchenette. Is it my fault?
    We were pretty quiet as we ate that night. I could hear the guys downstairs playing some crazy music and the cicadas outside. I desperately wanted to open a window because it was sweltering inside, but there’s always the threat of a cockroach or some horrific insect flying in, and until we buy screens we can’t really have the windows open at night.
    I didn’t feel like eating. It was too hot for baked potatoes.
    While we were sitting there I felt Mama looking at me again.
    “What are you looking at, Ma?”
    “Nothing.”
    “What else did Nonna have to say?”
    “She . . . she had guests.”
    I eyed her for a while before I picked up a bread-roll and toyed with it.
    “How was your day?” she asked.
    I shrugged, rolling my eyes. “Reasonable. Father Stephen came in for religion class. The attention span was unbelievable. If he was a teacher he could do heaps for HSC results. Pity he’s a priest.”
    “He’d probably make a horrible husband.”
    “Well, he decided to ask questions. Picked on me, of course, because he sees me at church. He wanted to know what we think of when we come back from communion and kneel down. Like do we pray or what. I told him that I check out any good-looking guys in church.”
    “You did not?” she asked, horrified, looking up at me.
    “Did so. He laughed. Sister told me I was a