She refilled her glass and sat down.
Life of the spirit versus that of the physical, she wrote. Sacred versus the profane. The educated versus the not. A world where the outer and inner is in constant opposition.
The world of the domestic kitchen is a female world （she underlined this）。 It is a world of routine, of body and of bodily function. A world of blood and carcass and guts and servitude. Men may enter but they do not work there and yet work is all that women do there. Occasionally in such paintings, male items may appear on the table – pipes, watches, maps – often in the most ludicrous composition and yet, they succeed in what they intend to do – revoke the feminine space. Male triumph over the triviality of the scene.
She drank from her glass. She continued to write.
The power of still life lies precisely in this triviality. Because it is a world of reliability. Of mutuality between objects that are there, and people who are not. Paused time in ghostly absence. Who was it who prepared the food? Who gutted the fish? Who scrubbed the kitchen? These are the actions that maintain life. Objects representing ordinary life reside in this space – plates, bowls, jars, pitchers, oyster knives. The shape of these objects has remained unchanged, as has their function. They have become fixed and unremarkable in this world of habit and we have taken them for granted. Yet within these forms something powerful is retained: continuity. Memory. Family.
She put down her pen. The child wouldn’t be nine any more, would she? Fourteen, at least. Fourteen with a new decade approaching. How wonderful.
La Dolce Vita
1960
The turn of the decade was welcomed. Farewell, the Fifties – what have you ever done for us?
Quite a lot, actually, said Massimo, lighting a cigarette and preparing to deliver a well-informed speech. Let me explain, he said. The country’s in the grip of an economic miracle due in no small part to the Marshall Plan – or the European Recovery Program, to give it its proper name – and there’s a great sense of relief and optimism after the war and Fascism.
I can feel that, said Pete.
Me too, said Cress.
Reconstruction is at an all-time high and mass migration has shifted a demographic from the deprived rural south to the more urban affluent north. Consequently, prosperity has found its way into the working classes and a new consumer society is flourishing. Fiat, Pirelli, Alfa Romeo, Vespa— Gucci, said Ulysses.
Gucci, repeated Massimo. Names that have put Italy on the world stage. Fashion has now become available to the masses – and he flashed the label of his new off-the-peg jacket – and washing machines and refrigerators and, more importantly, tinned tomatoes have transformed the lives of women like never before. Cars have replaced donkey and carts, and motorcycles bicycles. What else?
Televisions, said Cress.
Ah yes, televisions, Cress. Televisions everywhere! And the Pensione Bertolini even has a telephone and nobody cares. So, good times, said Massimo, exhaling a long stream of smoke. They were sitting outside Michele’s, under a large awning that had been bestowed by the Campari group for consistently high drink sales. The place was packed. Ulysses watched Giulia carry out good luck plates of lentils and cotechino.
A toast, said Claude, wanting to leave his mark on the evening. Hello, the Sixties! More of the same, please!
The men raised their glasses. Hello, the Sixties, more of the same, please!
Kid was over by the church steps, strumming a guitar. Course, she wasn’t called kid any more, she was Alys. All fourteen years and four months of her. Beatnik before she knew what it meant, in her railwayman’s cap and fishing sweater and shortened jeans. She waved to Pete and Cress walking across the square, Ulysses and Massimo deep in conversation behind. She’d become distant with Ulysses and didn’t know how to put it right.
Overnight things had changed. The feeling that the eyes of the world were laughing at her – well, she had that all the time now, now that she wanted to kiss girls. And she felt a bit wrong and the church didn’t help and neither did the kids at school with their gossip and jibes. She’d let Guido touch her barely formed breasts just to scotch the rumours. When she’d got home that night, she couldn’t look at Ulysses and she went to bed and didn’t eat. Maybe that was the start? Of the distance, she meant. An act of shame can never lessen another, but how could she know that, because she was fourteen years and four months old, and she was hormones and questions and no sign of a period yet. The crowd quietened and Alys smiled and the bluebirds sang.
And there’s Peg, said Cress.