The Helen Bianchin Collection. Helen Bianchin

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СКАЧАТЬ blinked rapidly, and forced herself to smile. ‘Hands-on practice, huh? You do know you’re going to have to help with the diapering?’

      ‘I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

      Aysha almost believed him.

      ‘I’ll serve the cannoli,’ Gianna declared. ‘And afterwards we have coffee.’

      ‘You women have the cannoli,’ Luigi dismissed with the wave of one hand. ‘Giuseppe, come with me. We’ll have a brandy. With the coffee, we’ll have grappa.’ He turned towards his son. ‘Carlo?’

      Women had their work to do, and it was work which didn’t involve men. Old traditions died hard, and the further they lived away from the Old Country, Aysha recognised ruefully, the longer it took those traditions to die.

      Carlo rose to his feet and followed the two older men from the room.

      Aysha braced herself for the moment Teresa would pounce. Gianna, she knew, would be more circumspect.

      ‘You cannot be serious about returning to work after the honeymoon.’

      Ten seconds. She knew, because she’d counted them off. ‘I enjoy working, Mamma. I’m very good at what I do.’

      ‘Indeed,’ Gianna complimented her. ‘You’ve done a wonderful job with the house.’

      ‘Ecco,’ Teresa agreed, and Aysha tried to control a silent sigh.

      Her mother invariably lapsed into Italian whenever she became passionate about something. Aysha sank back in her chair and prepared for a lengthy harangue.

      She wasn’t disappointed. The use of Italian became more frequent, as if needed to emphasise a point. And even Gianna’s gentle intervention did little to stem the flow.

      ‘If you had to work, I could understand,’ Teresa concluded. ‘But you don’t. There are hundreds, thousands,’ she corrected, ‘without work, and taking money from the government.’

      Aysha gave a mental groan. Politics. They were in for the long haul. She cast a pleading glance at Carlo’s mother, and received a philosophical shrug in response.

      ‘I’ll make coffee,’ Gianna declared, and Aysha stood to her feet with alacrity.

      ‘I’ll help with the dishes.’

      It was only a momentary diversion, for the debate merely shifted location from the dining room to the kitchen.

      Aysha’s head began to throb.

      ‘Zia Natalina has finished crocheting all the baskets needed for the bomboniera,’ Gianna interceded in a bid to change the subject. ‘Tomorrow she’ll count out all the sugared almonds and tie them into tulle circles. Her daughter Giovanna will bring them to the house early on the day of the wedding.’

      ‘Grazie, Gianna. I want to place them on the tables myself.’

      ‘Giovanna and I can do it, if it will help. You will have so much more to do.’

      Teresa inclined her head. ‘Carlo has the wedding rings? Annalisa has sewn the ring pillow, but the rings need to be tied onto it.’ A frown furrowed her brow. ‘I must phone and see if she has the ribbon ready.’ She gathered cups and saucers together onto the tray while Gianna set some almond biscuits onto a plate.

      ‘The men won’t touch them, but if I don’t put a plate down with something Luigi will complain.’ She lifted a hand and let it fall to her side. ‘Yet when I produce it, he’ll say they don’t want biscuits with coffee.’ Her humour was wry. ‘Men. Who can understand them?’ She cast a practised eye over the tray. ‘We have everything. Let’s join them, shall we?’

      All three men were grouped together in front of the television engrossed in a televised, soccer match.

      Luigi was intent on berating the goal keeper for presumably missing the ball, Aysha determined, and her father appeared equally irate.

      ‘Turn off the set,’ Gianna instructed Luigi as she placed the tray down onto a coffee table. ‘We have guests.’

      ‘Nonsense,’ he grumbled. ‘They’re family, not guests.’

      ‘It is impossible to talk with you yelling at the players.’ She cast him a stern glance. ‘Besides, you are taping it. When you replay you can yell all you like. Now we sit down and have coffee.’

      ‘La moglie.’ He raised his eyes heavenward.

      ‘Dio madonna. A man is not boss in his own house any more?’

      It was a familiar by-play, and one Aysha had heard many times over the years. Her father played a similar verbal game whenever Gianna and Luigi visited.

      Her eyes sought Carlo’s, and she glimpsed the faint humorous gleam evident as they waited silently for Gianna to take up the figurative ball.

      ‘Of course you are the boss. You need me to tell you this?’

      Luigi cast the tray an accusing glance. ‘You brought biscuits? What for? We don’t need biscuits with coffee. It spoils the taste of the grappa.’

      ‘Teresa and Aysha don’t have grappa,’ she admonished. ‘You don’t think maybe we might like biscuits?’

      ‘After cannoli you eat biscuits? You won’t sleep with indigestion.’

      ‘I won’t sleep anyway. After grappa you snore.’

      ‘I don’t snore.’

      ‘How do you know? Do you listen to yourself?’

      Luigi spread his hands in an expansive gesture. ‘Ah, Mamma, give it up, huh? We are with friends. You cooked a good dinner. Now it is time to relax.’ He held out a beckoning hand to Aysha. ‘Come here, ma tesora.’

      She crossed to his side and rested against the arm he curved round her waist.

      ‘When are you going to invite us to dinner at the new house?’

      ‘After they get back from the honeymoon,’ Gianna declared firmly. ‘Not before. It will bring bad luck.’

      Luigi didn’t take any notice. ‘Soon there will be bambini. Maybe already there is one started, huh, and you didn’t tell us?’

      ‘You talk too much,’ his wife chastised. ‘Didn’t you hear Aysha say she intends to wait a couple of years? Aysha, don’t listen to him.’

      ‘Ah, grandchildren. You have a boy first, to kick the soccer ball. Then a girl. The brother can look after his sister.’

      ‘Two boys,’ Giuseppe insisted, joining the conversation. ‘Then they can play together.’

      ‘Girls,’ Aysha declared solemnly. ‘They’re smarter, and besides they get to help me in the house.’

      ‘A boy and a girl.’

      ‘If СКАЧАТЬ