CAROL MARINELLI - English Doctor, Italian Bride

‘Do you want me to wash your hair for you?’ Carmel offered.

‘It will dry all fluffy!’

‘If you rub it dry and don’t put some product in, it will.’ Carmel gave a half-smile. Bonita looked at her mum’s salt-and-pepper coloured corkscrew curls, as long and as wild as her own dark ones. ‘Curly hair is something I know about.’

‘OK, then,’ Bonita said, closing her eyes and letting the wretched day go as her mother massaged shampoo into her scalp.

And it did feel nice to be clean, nice to be wrapped in a big towel as her mother sorted out something for her to wear to bed.

‘This will do!’

‘It will not!’ Bonita baulked at the vast flannelette nightdress her mother held up. ‘It’s hideous.’

‘I know!’ Carmel agreed. ‘Ricky bought it me for Christmas.’

‘Yuk!’ Bonita pulled a face, wondering what on earth had possessed her elder brother.

‘What about this?’ Carmel proffered another creation, and Bonita was about to pull a face but realised it was one of her own gifts that she had given her mother a couple of birthdays ago.

‘Wait till you get to my age.’ Carmel grinned, popping it over her head and helping her pull through her good arm. ‘I’ve got a drawer full of nightdresses—I don’t even wear a nightdress.’

‘Mum! Too much information, thanks!’

Hideous nightdress or not, it was nice to sit in her mother’s room. Carmel didn’t rub her hair dry as she had when Bonita had been a child but instead patted it then put through half a bottle of anti-frizz. It was actually nice to talk to her mother.

‘Are you still upset about Bill?’

‘No.’ Even though she was pleating the nightdress with her good hand, even though she couldn’t look her mother in the eye as she spoke, Bonita’s answer was honest. ‘He was right to end it.’

‘Why did he?’ For the first time her mother pushed, but Bonita just couldn’t answer. ‘You two seemed so happy.’

‘We were.’

‘You still don’t want to talk about it?’ Carmel said. Then she changed the subject and promptly hit a very sensitive nerve that had nothing to do with Bonita’s shoulder!

‘How does it feel, seeing Hugh again after all this time?’

‘OK,’ Bonita said lightly. ‘It’s a bit weird working with him, though…’ She watched her mother’s eyes narrow a touch as she worked on her hair. ‘I mean, I knew him when he was a medical student—it’s strange now that he’s a registrar.’

‘I always thought that he’d come back,’ Carmel mused. ‘When he went back to England, of course, I worried, but he always kept in touch and he did love Australia so. I’m surprised he even went back!’

‘His father was dying,’ Bonita pointed out. Her lips tightened as she swallowed hard for a second, wondering, not for the first time, just how hard it must have been for Hugh—his mother had died when he was very young and he had no brothers and sisters. As much as her family drove Bonita crazy at times, she absolutely adored them. She couldn’t, for even a moment, imagine dealing with her father completely on her own.

‘I expected him to go back for a holiday perhaps,’ Carmel huffed, unmoved. ‘Not to live there. I mean, they hardly knew each other—imagine sending a five-year-old to boarding school! I’m sure that’s why he’s the way he is.’

‘What do you mean? Bonita asked, then wished she hadn’t, wished she hadn’t prolonged the conversation, her heart in her mouth when her mother spoke next.

‘With women,’ Carmel responded. ‘He’s good at flirting, good at dating, but he hasn’t got much staying power—first sign of commitment and he’s gone. I guess it’s hard to get close to someone if you’ve never actually been close to anyone…

‘You had a bit of a thing for him once, didn’t you?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous…’ Bonita attempted, and then gave in. After all, from the moment puberty had hit she’d blushed every time his name had been mentioned! ‘I was a teenager, Mum—hormones raging. I’m not exactly the first girl to have a crush on one of her brother’s friends.’

‘How about now?’

‘Please!’ Bonita scoffed. ‘I’ve seen how he goes through women. Good-looking he may be, but he knows it! And he’s so scathingly superior at work.’

‘Maybe,’ Carmel agreed, ‘but underneath all that he’s still a very nice man. He’s always kept in touch, and since he’s been back he’s been round plenty of times, not just to exercise Ramone but to see your father.’

‘I guess.’ Bonita attempted a shrug, but it hurt too much, and not just in her shoulder. ‘We’ll just have to agree to disagree about Hugh.’ Grateful for any distraction from this rather difficult subject, her eyes lit up a touch when she saw a heavy framed silver photo on her mother’s dressing-table.

‘Zia Lucia!’

Fondly Bonita traced the elegant figure of her favourite aunt. ‘I miss her.’

‘You adored her, didn’t you?’ Carmel smiled. ‘You wanted to be just like her!’

‘She was always so glamorous.’ Bonita grinned. ‘Dashing overseas, sending us lovely gifts…’

‘Giving your father an ulcer.’

Oh, and she had. Bonita could remember the tension whenever Zia Lucia had descended. Cooing like a bird of paradise, she’d swoop on the family, showering her favourite niece with shiny dresses and shoes, drinking too much wine with dinner and refusing to help with the dishes. The fact she’d never married had been a constant thorn in Luigi’s side, as if somehow he’d failed his sister, as if somehow, by staying single, Lucia also had failed.

‘Poor Zia…’ Bonita sighed. ‘She was just so busy with her career.’

‘Career, my foot!’ her mother exclaimed. ‘She never worked a day in her life.’

‘She had a career in sales.’

‘Selling herself more like!’ Carmel tutted. ‘Off with that fancy MP. She was a kept woman—a mistress!’

‘Zia Lucia!’ Bonita gave a shocked laugh and after a moment Carmel laughed, too. ‘Does Dad know?’

‘Your dad didn’t want to know!’ Carmel winked. ‘So don’t waste any tears crying for your prematurely departed spinster aunt. She packed more into her life than anyone else I’ve met.’

‘Golly!’ Bonita blinked at the photo. ‘No wonder you used to get so cross when I said I wanted to grow up and be exactly like her.’

‘No wonder!’ Carmel rolled her eyes. ‘Bed!”

‘It’s eight o’clock,’ Bonita attempted, but she really wasn’t up to arguing. She headed to the lounge and kissed her dad goodnight then went happily to her old bedroom, slipped into her little single bed and just lay there.

Thought about Zia Lucia and her fancy man, which made her smile.

Then thought about Hugh, which made it fade.

Bill had been right to end it.

Oh, they had been happy, or at least chugging along, till Hugh had come back—till Hugh had ripped off the sticky plaster she’d applied to her heart when he’d left, and all the old hurt, the anger, the bitterness, the longing had started to seep out. And try as she had to hide it, Bill had sensed the shift, and had eventually ended it…just as she had been about to. How she’d cried, but her friends and family hadn’t understood. She hadn’t been crying over the ending—instead, she’d been crying at the reason it was over.

That Hugh was back and even though she couldn’t stand to admit it, even to herself, her feelings remained.

Hugh had been her first real kiss.

Not her first kiss—oh, there had been plenty of them, half-baked efforts at the local disco.

No, Hugh had been her first real kiss.

Real, because he’d been the first one who had truly moved her.