Love, War and Ice Cream

Iole slipped her shoes off at the door. “Marina, where are you?” she called. There was no sound in the flat apart from the drip-drip of the tap in the kitchen at the side. The only movement came from a yellowed wedge of patterned floor tiles, flickering as it pulled the timid light from the open window into the front room.

 “Where are you, Meri? It’s almost nine,” she called again. On the dining table, she placed the stack of printed menus entitled Domingo, 2 de Abril, 1965.

She thought she heard a giggle from Marina’s room, but it could have been the coo roo c’too coo from a pigeon perched on the balcony. She tiptoedtwo steps and opened the door.

Unnoticed, she observed comics strewn all over the bed and floor, and her son and daughter, still in their nightclothes, reading and tittering together. They jumped when she stamped her foot. Gianni sprung off the sheets like they were on fire and began frantically to tidy up.

Marina stretched out her arms, her expression barely guilty. “Buenos Dias, Mama,” she said. “I was just getting up,” and then she scooted around her mother and out of the room.

Iole chased after her, “Meri! What are you doing? Why aren’t you ready? Don’t you want to get married?”

Her daughter just laughed, but there was such joy in her voice that Iole had to laugh also, and then the song of the mass bells of San Antonio filled the air.

***

Arturo Campo scraped the ice cream out of the churn, flicking it with disgust into the stainless steel container tucked under his arm. Over the top of the swing doors he could see the heads and hats of more and more people crowding into the shop, even though it was still early. Such a sight would normally have buoyed his spirits but today his whole being felt dull and leaden.

Why couldn’t Meri find a nice Italian boy, a boy from Zoldo, someone more like us? Even a Spaniard would have been better than that Englishman. How could she even think of leaving her family?

He knew the answers to his questions. In that moment, remorse flooded over him, hot and bitter. He regretted his whole life, the way he had treated his daughter, the choices he had made, and not fighting harder for his dreams. His head ached and then the first stinging tears fell, and he sat down at the workbench, his head on his arms, and began to sob.

***

Despite the impatience that was permeating her every fibre, Zoë Fairtlough managed a stiff smile. “I’m sure Marina will be here in a moment,” she said. For her son, she composed her face into a picture of calm while in her mind one question throbbed. How dare that girl keep us waiting!

She wanted to embrace her boy, to wipe away the dismay that wascreeping across his face, but she wasn’t sure whether she ought to; he might not like that. Harry was twenty-three now, and so grown-up in many ways—so handsome and clever, and a great sportsman. His life held so much promise. So like his father and yet not. No one had ever been late for Eric.

What would he have thought? What would he have made of Harry’s choice to marry someone so different from anyone they knew, and in another country so alien from their own?

She swallowed as she remembered her own wedding day, standing next to Eric in the old chapel. Everything was still so vivid: the scent of the lilies everywhere, the jewelled light dancing on the altar cloth, and her sense of wonder that the intriguing man at her side could love her and that she could be so much in love with him. The fifteen years’ gap in age had not mattered. That memory gave her pause.

Maybe these differences that I see are not so important after all. Maybe Marina will be the great wife Harry deserves.

A movement caught her eye and she glanced across the dusty square— dirty pigeons swooping down to the gaudy yellow cart of the street vendor who was shouting something unintelligible. She would have liked to bomb them all. Her hands gripped her handbag so tightly that they trembled.

***

He thought he saw a figure in white at the open window. Is that her? From the entrance of the church of San Antonio, Harry squinted up once more across the tree-lined square, against the sun poking its face over the buildings. The balcony of the flat where Marina had lived all her life spilled over with geraniums, bright and cheerful as the pealing of the bells. Something brushed his arm. Mum’s gloved hand. For a moment, he had forgotten she was there.

“In some countries, it’s the custom to keep the groom waiting,” she said. Mum’s lips smiled as she nodded in reassurance, the multitude of gold feathers on her hat bobbing at the same time.

Those words, however, did not have the desired effect. Harry panicked. Has Don Arturo forbidden Marina to marry me after all? He weakened at the thought. Her father had been ambivalent about the engagement. Doña Iole couldn’t have been happier though, and she was the one who ruled the roost, no matter what her husband said. Marina must come, Harry told himself. Then, emerging from the leafy shadows, a figure came running. It was Marina’s brother, Gianni.

Editorial Reviews

"This tender and often very funny account of diverse cultures coming together is rooted in the common ground of honor, duty, integrity, and love given freely and unselfishly... The only thing wrong with this book is that it ends."  That's what the Blue Ink review said of the recently published Love, War and Ice Cream, highlighting it as a notable new book.