Sara Alexander - The Last Concerto

Alba watched the town before her from her seat at the head table, ignoring the knowing stares at her bruised face beneath the layers of pink blusher. Her father swayed between tables, shaking hands, laughing full-bellied, her mother’s feathers sprayed with pride, her brothers among the guests greeting everyone like princes. Several tables beyond theirs, Raffaele sat beside his parents looking his usual pale self, his own face a healing map of surface wounds. Alba shot him a look, counting the seconds until she could get him outside and lay into him for being in any way complicit with the obnoxious plan for them to marry. They had to stay visible at least for the meal before she could find a quiet corner for them to talk.

A chorus of glass tinkling rose from the tables, to yells for the couple to kiss. ‘ Bacio! Bacio! ’ the guests belted, a canon of bass and tenor, soprano laughter. The tempo quickened, till it galloped towards consummation. Marcellino and Lucia leaned into each other, pressed their lips together, and the room exploded with applause.

Once the first feast reached its end, Alba took the opportunity to escape. Outside, the air was hot against her skin. The sun was beginning its golden descent towards the mountains, their purple silhouettes rising into focus.

‘I’ve been going crazy not being able to talk to you!’ Raffaele called out, breathless.

Alba turned. He stood a few steps behind her, his vanilla skin turning amber, the sun streaking across the healing scrapes on his forehead.

‘You’ve lost your mind!’ she blurted. ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I want to hurt you.’

‘Yes, I’m fine, thanks, my friend, how are you?’

Alba shook her head. ‘You’re the insane one here, not me.’

‘Actually, I’ve accepted our escape route.’

‘For someone so clever your common sense has some seriously arrested development.’

Raffaele grabbed her shoulder. ‘You want to die here?’

‘No dramatics, Ra’.

‘We get married – we get to do what we like with our lives. Real lives. What town do you think we’re living in, Alba? We both know what plans they’ve made for you. And they don’t involve Elias.’

Alba stiffened.

‘You don’t think I’ve put two and two together? The way you speak about music. The way your face lights up like a flame when you’ve played me some of the records she gave you at my house? Come on. You don’t have to be a detective to know that spending every morning with a music teacher insinuates you are her pupil.’

‘Save your smart-ass for someone else, Ra. They stopped me going after the fight. Why do you think I’ve had my brothers following me like shadows?’

‘And it’s killing you. Alba, this is me. Not some idiot. I’m not going to tell anyone. Obviously. Crazy that we’re even having this conversation.’

Alba pinned him with a stare.

‘Don’t be like that. I’m just …’ His voice trailed off for a moment.

‘I thought you were my friend,’ she whispered, fighting tears of frustration and almost winning.

‘I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.’

Alba turned her gaze away from him, playing chess manoeuvres in her mind to escape her corner.

‘My parents will be expecting a good match for me,’ he said, undeterred, releasing his hands from her. ‘I don’t want to spend my life with another woman. It makes me feel like I’m dying. You don’t want to spend your life behind the counter of an officina – so why don’t we cut our losses, do the stupid thing, and then move away from it all?’

Alba turned to him, eyes stinging. ‘You’re talking shit.’

‘At least I’m talking.’

Her breaths rose in her chest.

‘I got the acceptance letter from the University of Cagliari yesterday. I don’t know how I’m going to cope without you, Alba. We know each other’s secrets.’

Not all of them , Alba thought.

‘I don’t think there’s a soul out there I could trust like I do you. And it terrifies me.’

Alba held her friend’s cheek in her hand. His skin was soft where he had shaved. She took a breath to tell him about her offer from the accademia . Mario’s sneer interrupted before she could. ‘People normally go someplace private to do that shit.’

The pair twisted round to him as he threw a cigarette into his mouth and lit it.

‘People normally don’t interrupt conversations they’re not part of,’ Alba snapped.

‘Planning on swinging for round two, Alba? Your papà would love that. At your brother’s wedding of the year and all.’

Alba pinned him with a stare. Mario flicked his ash down onto the dusty earth by her shoes. ‘Don’t know what you see in her, Raffaele,’ he jeered.

Raffaele didn’t return his glance.

‘Your dad’s pissed as a fart, Alba,’ Mario said, flicking her a diagonal grin.

She watched Mario take a deep drag on his cigarette, the orange-ruby light dipping his skin a richer olive, the thick mass of eyelashes potent shades for his jeering eyes.

‘Anyway, get back to your necking. Your dads will be organizing your big day in no time.’ He scuffed the dirt. ‘What?’ he asked, taking another drag. ‘Frustrating to have to hear it as it is and not be able to throw a bottle at me?’

He turned back to the hangar, which hummed with song now, a call-and-response chant, each verse interrupted by the throng in unison.

‘He likes you,’ Raffaele said.

Alba shot him a look.

‘I know you’d like me to say he’s straight out terrified of you. But when you’re a stupid boy choked by the feelings you have for someone you behave like him. Pretty much how I deal with Claudio on a daily basis. Either that or I act like I’m totally indifferent.’

Raffaele’s smile was fringed with sadness.

‘The next few months are going to be intense. I know it. Dad’s got big plans for me. I’ll do anything to take the heat off.’

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘That’s what we’re doing,’ he replied, just as Salvatore came bounding out of the hangar.

‘Alba, Raffaele! Babbo says to come in, they’re about to toast you!’

Alba couldn’t get her response out before they were dragged inside to deafening applause.

‘Please God, these two will be the next!’ Bruno shouted. The crowd stood, gleaming eyes that Alba felt were seeming to wish imprisonment on them both. Her bones felt brittle, as if they’d never felt the response of a piano’s song beneath them, calling out all that was hers to utter in secret, filling the air with melodic freedom, nor never would again.

She tried to swallow, but her mouth remained dry.

Fuoco

a directive to perform a certain passage with energy and passion. Con fuoco means with fire, instruction to play in a fiery manner

A few days later, Signora Elias dropped by to speak with Giovanna and offer a cordial invitation to come to hers for coffee, an official thank-you for all the time she and Alba had worked for her, she’d said, in a way that Giovanna was left with no power to refuse. The date was set. During the weekend, after school had reached its end, Alba and her parents would come to her house. Never had five days felt so close and far away.

Now, at the beginning of the week, all of Ozieri crowded around the huge bonfire in Piazza Cantareddu to celebrate St John the Baptist. Beside the fire, people sat upon wooden benches drinking wine and carving slabs of cheese from enormous pieces, wrapping them into blankets of bread and toasting the feast. Applause began from one end of the square and rippled up to where Alba sat with her mother and Grazietta.

‘ Abaida! ’ Grazietta called above the din. ‘Isn’t that Gigi’s boy? I didn’t know he was singing with the men now!’