Sunrise By the Sea by Jenny Colgan
Chapter Fifteen
Her nonna still didn’t get her hairline into the camera, so it was like talking to the top of a hill, but the words that came from her mouth were kind.
‘Of course you miss him. Of course you do. We all do. Of course you are sad. Your mother, she cries every day.’
It was with a stab of guilt Marisa heard this.
She had thought Lucia was more or less fine about it; she certainly hadn’t stopped her normal life of seeing her friends, going to bridge club, going swimming, hanging out in the open air. Her mother’s frantic social life had barely slowed down in the last few years, regardless of what was going on in the world. It had always irritated her introvert daughter, that constant rush to be surrounded by people, to be everywhere.
‘She needs to be busy. She thinks it makes it better,’ said her nonna. ‘Maybe it does.’
‘Maybe,’ said Marisa.
‘Do not be so sad. He was old and he had a very happy life because he was married to me. So there.’
Marisa smiled.
‘And he loved you and all his children and grandchildren and he sat in the sun and talked to his friends and drank good wine, so there is nothing to be so sad about. You know, some lives are very sad when they finish. You know I had a sister. I was small and I don’t remember. But she got measles. She died. I don’t even remember it, but it made my mother unhappy for the rest of her life. That was sad.’
Marisa had known a little about that; her mother often said, if Marisa was looking particularly gloomy, that she reminded her of her own grandmother, who had died long before. Marisa had known even at a young age that this wasn’t a compliment; that her mother might rather have preferred an outgoing, charming child she could have taken to her bridge group and shown off, who would have been a popular member of the church community, not a terrified little mouse who hid behind her mother’s skirts and didn’t say a word unless directly addressed. Even when she’d opened up as she’d got older – you could hardly perform wedding ceremonies and be a total introvert – and found nice friends, her mother still saw her as that mouse, she felt, which had the tendency to make her clam up in her presence, and that of her mother’s noisy, carefree friends, who were legion.
‘So!’ Her nonna’s face brightened. ‘Your hair is terrible, but let me know what has been happening in your life.’
‘Not very much,’ confessed Marisa. ‘But I do have a noisy neighbour.’
‘I have a solution,’ said her grandmother when she’d finished. ‘You take your broom handle. And just – BOOM! Hit the side of the wall. Every time he does it.’
‘I don’t think I can do that,’ said Marisa. ‘It’s his job.’
‘Then, at night! Put on very loud music at four a.m. and leave a note saying “This is what you will get, signore. Hahaha to you.” Also, get a very large dog that barks, bau bau all day and all night. And if all else fails, I will send Little Carlo to cause some trouble.’
‘Um, thanks,’ said Marisa.
‘So, to begin with. Go round to his house. Take the broom. Bang on the door and say, “This must stop now. Or . . .”’
‘Or what?’ said Marisa, whose options, she felt, were very few.
‘Or you hit him with the broomstick! This isn’t difficult, Marisa.’
‘I’ll end up in prison! Is prison your answer to this?’
Is prison quiet? Marisa found herself thinking. Probably not.
‘Don’t actually hit him with your broomstick! But you really must convince him that you could!’
‘Is that why you don’t talk to your neighbours?’
‘No, that is because our neighbours are . . .’
And Nonna used a word in Italian Marisa would have sworn she didn’t know.