Burning Down Read online

  ‘She’s not a waitress, signora. She’s at university. Psicologia e filosofia. She’s in her second year and doing very well.’

  ‘Si?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Must be a part-time job then.’

  ‘Where did you see her?’

  For some reason, which happened all the time with the foreigners in Kulari, Signora Selina switched to her form of English. ‘My ’usband he take me to dinner for our anniversario. He don’ know much, got the one place in his ’ead so we go dere. Very nice. You like?’

  Charlie had a feeling he knew where she meant. It was just about the only special place people like the signora’s husband would ever think about spending their money.

  ‘You sure she’s working at Diego’s? It wasn’t someone looked like her?’

  ‘Sissy she kiss me. I say, “You want I tell hello to you fudder?” She say, “No, you leave him alone.” Den she get our food.’ Signora Selina smiled at him, kind understanding in every line of her face. ‘Carmelo, you gotta fix tings with you girl, huh?’

  He finished his walk home carrying his vegetables and herbs, thinking about what the signora had told him. It had been on his mind anyway, since Tracy died, how to fix things with his girl. When he went inside he put everything away then lifted the perspex lid of his turntable. Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, 1959. He found he’d lost the urge to make himself something decent for dinner. Instead, he poured a glass of last night’s rough red and filled a small bowl with marinated olives and artichoke hearts. Then he sat at his chair by a window, blues for company, and passed another evening in his shadowed street.

  The following night there was a downpour the television weatherman hadn’t predicted. As Charlie parked his ute he saw the way heavy rain made all these Fortitude Valley streets want to disappear. He joined several people taking shelter under the front canopy of Diego’s Bistro, then he waited as they ran on, splashing through glistening puddles. Charlie let his hat and overcoat soak up a little more of the wet. He peered through the glass frontage, looking for Sistine. There she was in the thick smoky haze, waiting tables on a wet Monday night.

  Bobby Domingo was working as well, waif-like, floppy rock-and-roll hair, the boy directing staff. Charlie had been invited to Bobby’s twenty-first; the Domingos would have seen straight through the lousy excuse he offered. He sent a present, a small framed photo of Rome’s Colosseo with a clock embedded in it. He imagined his gift going into the garbage.

  Taking a deep breath, Charlie wiped rain from his face and opened the door to the tinkling of a small bell. A waiter was there to help him with his coat and hat.

  ‘Signor Fumo, it’s been so long.’

  Charlie didn’t recognise the waiter even though the man knew to call him by his real name. They shook hands then he let himself be led around the edge of a small dance floor. When the older gentleman in his sleek black trousers and crisp white shirt, frilled all the way down the middle, showed him to a table, Charlie preferred one he saw up the back. It was by a wall, quiet and not under any direct light. Most of the lighting here was subdued anyway. On this rainy night so early in the week the place was three-quarters empty.

  ‘To drink, Signor Fumo?’

  ‘Maybe something red.’

  ‘Chianti or claret?’

  ‘You choose.’

  Charlie fumbled the menu. Nerves were getting to him. All day on a building site alone, finishing off a nice concrete driveway he’d been working on five days, he hadn’t thought about anything other than coming here to talk to his daughter. Sistine, however, had disappeared through the swinging kitchen doors and hadn’t reappeared.

  That waiter must have dropped a word into the ear of his boss. Charlie took a deep breath as he watched Diego Domingo emerge through a door that probably led to his office. At first Diego busied himself with some matter at the bar then he glanced over and gave Charlie a conspiratorial wink. As always, the man was sharp in a good suit. His hair was perfect and silvery and looked even thicker than in his heyday.

  Diego started to come over, stopping to talk with three craggy older men, guys who always seemed to be arguing. They were old boxers, Charlie knew, back two generations before him. Now they had something to do with horse training and the races. The three sat in a conspiratorial huddle, Billy Connors, Dan McGavin and the black guy, used to be one of the best, Neville Doctor. It should have been a joke but Neville fought under the name ‘Doctor Irish’ because somewhere in his genealogy Old Terry Darcy said he’d uncovered a shot of Irish blood. Whether that was true or not, promoters preferred those whitebread names on their posters and flyers.

  ‘What they call you isn’t what you are, so don’t try changing.’

  Coach Joe Pacca, telling him what’s what. Funny how Charlie remembered just about every word that man ever spoke. And his father?

  Yeah, better to forget about that.

  Couldn’t forget Diego Domingo, though.

  …

  He’d been in his office at the back, buttoning his collar and adjusting his tie, when he heard that Carmelo Fumo—his old friend and adversary Charlie Smoke—was in the bistro. Many knew of Smokin’ Charlie from overheard stories of the old days, but few who worked here had actually met him. In recent years Carmelo had been to the bistro two or three times at most, always on his own, never with a group or a lady friend. In fact, far as Diego knew, since the divorce the man had been alone.

  So much a memory that most people assumed he’d gone to his reward long ago. Quite a few at Tracy’s funeral, for instance, had been more than a little surprised to see the man in the flesh. Diego, however, had always kept tabs on Carmelo, with just enough contact to know he chose to live a long way off in a nothing suburb, working in a nothing job with no ties to anyone from their mutual past. A curious individual, true, but that’s what defeat did to some; it made them go find a hole to crawl into, sometimes for the rest of their lives.

  Tonight, however, Diego wasn’t surprised to hear Carmelo had come in. Ever since Sistine started working in the bistro he’d expected some sort of visit. How long had she been working here now, a month, maybe two? Since poor Tracy died. January. No, wait, April. He remembered it had been a cold day, him needing to wear a scarf. Probably sometime in June then.

  Diego hated these little slips of memory; he actually needed to turn to the wall calendar. Too many things on a busy man’s mind, and now that he reflected on that funeral’s sad day he felt again the tragedy of losing such a woman. Sistine’s mother, Carmelo’s long-time ex, a good friend to the Domingos taken too young. Then Robertino had come in to say they needed to give Sistine a job.

  ‘I just don’t know what will happen to her if we don’t, Papi.’

  What would happen to her was that she would endure, because that’s what women did, all of them so much stronger and smarter than men—but Robertino, bless him, was still too much a boy to have learned this important detail about life.

  He’d been right, though, about what needed doing: no way would Diego let anything happen to Sistine. She was just about part of the family, from when she was little, and who might soon be one for real—if Robertino developed the brains and cahones to ask her the right question. Sometimes Diego wanted to shake his boy until some sense came into his head, make him realise it was time to be a man. Twenty-one years of age; think of everything Diego had achieved by then, and how he’d been smart enough to set himself up for even greater success.

  He’d had a good trainer, a good manager, sure, back in Spain, but it had always been Diego in charge of his life. Even in this country when Terence Darcy had approached him and guaranteed him a sweeter career with a name like ‘Terrible Tony Thompson’ or ‘Dangerous Dino Dixon’, eighteen-year-old Diego had done what came naturally, which was to laugh the man away and go win a half-dozen local bouts against higher ranked opponents. That way Terry had to come back with a better off
er, his Australian tail between his legs.

  ‘Diego “The Danger” Domingo, now and forever,’ Terry promised. ‘If I’d known you’d be so much trouble I would have left you on the boat.’

  Terry had been Diego’s first friend in this country. A man who looked old even in his thirties. Diego countered with his own nickname for the businessman, ‘Old Terry’, and that’s what stuck.

  What did any of this mean now? Nothing for Diego but everything for his boy; it was high time he learned to be a man. Robertino had been a much-loved and much-protected child so long. Too long. Is this what the combination of a loving father and mother and such a modern age of free love and crazy music did to the next generation?

  ‘Do you understand what it means to take the bull by the horns?’

  ‘Of course, Papi.’

  ‘Then why not show me?’

  Ah, but time would tell.

  Diego checked himself again, touched his hair, and left the office so that he could wander the bistro floor and greet his diners, see how things were going and cast an eye over Carmelo Fumo.

  He gave the bar a nonchalant examination and spoke to tonight’s barman, then he turned and gave Carmelino a sly little wink, knowing the man’s eyes would be on him. There he was, sitting in a quiet little spot, out of the way, meek as a mouse. Diego stopped to share a joke with the three old boxers, men who’d made the bistro their second home for more than twenty years now. In that moment he couldn’t resist playing up the part of magnanimous owner and host; he didn’t quite want to hurt Carmelino, but it amused Diego to make the man have to watch the sort of popularity and success he’d never had.

  Now the three old guys were laughing uproariously. Diego waited a moment. Then, as if he’d only just noticed the fact, he told them, ‘Well, look who’s here.’

  Craning their heads, surprised at who they saw, the three raised their glasses of sangria. Diego observed the discomfort with which Carmelo nodded back at this collection of wizened faces, bent noses and crooked smiles. Those smiles were genuine, of course. If Carmelo had given them the chance they would all have liked him to be a member of their group. To these ex-boxers, men who knew their stuff, Diego Domingo was the champ, but Smokin’ Charlie was the one local fighter who just might have taken his belt.

  Diego patted a bony pair of shoulders—the black boy’s, Neville Doctor—and finally crossed the floor to Carmelo’s table. He was unhurried, careful in that way of a man with a little pain in his hips.

  ‘Look at this salami come to hide up the back.’

  ‘Buenas tardes, cerdo Español.’

  ‘Did you want us to get you further out of the way? You could eat in the alley.’

  ‘Might be better than this dump.’

  ‘A year since the last time we saw you here?’

  ‘Could be two, Diego.’

  ‘And you’ve ordered?’

  ‘Send Sistine over and I’ll tell her what I want.’

  ‘What you want is your daughter out of here, do I guess right?’

  ‘Why would I want that, Diego?’

  ‘Because we know each other too well.’

  They stopped a moment, considering one another. Then Carmelo spoke more seriously. ‘Just tell her I’d like to talk.’

  ‘Why not leave the girl alone?’

  ‘Because I’m her father.’

  ‘Let her grow up.’

  ‘Maybe I’ve done too much of that.’

  ‘You’ll love the filete a la pimienta. There it is on the menu.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Diego followed Carmelo’s gaze. Sistine had emerged from the kitchen and was standing at the bar with her back toward the dining area. In normal circumstances Diego would have had Robertino correct immediately such a wayward move by one of their wait staff, no matter who it was.

  ‘My daughter’s standing over there like this table’s empty.’

  ‘Let me sit with you a minute.’ Diego spoke with the genuine kindness he’d always felt for Carmelino, even as adversaries. He eased himself into the opposite chair, back creaking and sore. ‘Why stay away so long, old friend?’

  ‘I’m pretty busy these days.’

  ‘You barely spoke to either me or Miranda at the funeral.’

  ‘I wanted to speak to Sissy.’

  ‘And she wouldn’t?’

  Diego watched the way Carmelo shrugged. It hurt him to see that shrug; it hid not one bit of a father’s pain. And it must have been even worse knowing that Sistine, and of course Tracy, had become such good friends of the Domingos.

  ‘I never tried to keep her away from you.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Resentment goes deep.’

  ‘It was a divorce. These things happen.’

  ‘She thinks you hurt her mother far worse than you should have.’

  ‘So you know what my daughter thinks?’

  Diego tried to ignore the tightening in the other man’s features. ‘A girl has to talk to someone.’

  ‘I was always ready.’

  Again there was that pause between them, and Diego wondered if they’d ever have the chance to speak properly and plainly, as two men who’d known each other so long. Then again, the past, it never really wants to go away.

  ‘Carmelino … can you believe it’s good to see you?’

  ‘Same here,’ the other man spoke, his voice gruff, unconvincing.

  ‘Did you hear my favourite cutman passed away?’

  ‘Dougie Hart?’

  ‘Loved the ring and the fighters.’

  ‘Worked on me a few times too.’

  ‘He certainly did, Carmelo. He helped us all.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The heart. And with a name like that. Ironic, isn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe it all ends up ironic.’

  Huh, and there’s the sum of the way this man sees the world.

  ‘He stitched me up twice,’ Diego went on, though now he felt the way his thoughts had started to wander, as if concentrating on this conversation was too much to ask. ‘Sugar Thompson and Wolfman Wallace, 5 June and 12 August, 1947.’

  ‘Forty-six, as I remember.’

  ‘I’m right; you’re wrong.’ Diego frowned a moment, then shook his head. ‘I’m sharp with dates.’

  ‘What about our big match?’

  ‘Anzac Day, 1950.’

  ‘You’ve added two years.’

  ‘Don’t be a clown.’ Diego shook his head again and wondered why Carmelo was being like this. ‘What makes you so playful, trying to trick me?’

  ‘No one ever tricked you, Diego.’

  ‘If they’d let me go to America I could have shown everyone I was as good as Soose or Zale, even Graziano.’

  ‘They didn’t even want us out of Queensland.’

  ‘Fools.’

  ‘Truth is, we were only good in our own backyard, right?’

  ‘Speak for yourself, old friend. Imagine if I was in the ring with Sugar Ray. Instead I had salamis like you.’ Diego showed him his fist, which tonight trembled only a little, then he stretched his fingers and finally offered Carmelo a handshake. Which was accepted. ‘Now these hands only welcome hungry diners.’

  ‘Best use you’ve put them to.’

  ‘Ah, my beautiful wife.’

  Diego stood from the chair and put an arm around Miranda Domingo’s matronly waist. He was glad she’d turned up; somehow he’d felt the thread of this meeting with Carmelino starting to unravel, go places he couldn’t quite control. What was this business about dates?

  Carmelo also rose to his feet, receiving a kiss on each cheek, and though he smiled at Miranda, Diego knew his real attention remained on the way Sistine kept hanging around that bar, as if going anywhere near the bistro tables was the last thing she wanted to do.

/>   ‘Sit down, Carmelo,’ Miranda told him. ‘What can we bring you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Filete a la something. How’s Sissy?’

  ‘She’s a good girl.’

  ‘I didn’t know she was working here.’

  ‘Just since Tracy—God bless her soul. We knew the girl would need something.’

  ‘I thought she already had something. University.’

  ‘It might not be what she wants,’ Diego said, and noticed again the way Carmelo’s features so quickly hardened.

  ‘Then what’s she want, according to you?’

  Yet it was good to spend a moment with a man not such a pushover. It reminded Diego just how thrilling it had been to get the better of him all those decades ago.

  Miranda intervened.

  ‘Caballeros.’ She tried to laugh softly. ‘Children go their own way. Why make anything of it?’

  Carmelo slid an envelope from the inside pocket of his coat and held it out to Miranda.

  ‘Would you give this to her?’

  ‘I will.’ Diego put out his hand. He took the envelope, considered it a moment, then placed it on the table in front of him.

  ‘I’ll send someone for your order,’ Miranda sighed.

  Just the two of them again, Diego looked into Carmelo’s face, taking a moment to study how much he’d aged since the last time he’d seen him. The funeral and wake had been so busy, but now Diego noted that the man didn’t look too bad at all, and seemed fit enough, but there was a lot more grey in his hair and wrinkles accentuated the scarred skin tissue around his eyes, especially the right one. The Charlie Smoke of old had been too much a bleeder; it was a genetic thing probably, tender skin not made for a sport like boxing. That skin of Carmelo’s had been too easy to break and, once it was healed, far too easy to break again. Every boxer had known to zero in on Smokin’ Charlie’s old wounds, meaning to reopen them and force a stoppage. So many times the tactic had worked, Carmelo losing fights he might otherwise have gone on to win. In their one bout, however, the big one, Diego Domingo had used a completely different tactic.

  Diego saw that Carmelo was distracted, watching Robertino now crossing the unused dance floor, going to Sistine and saying something very close to her ear.