The next morning Vincenzo struggles to get out of bed. He knows he had a late night with the men drinking, but he can’t remember how he got home. All he can remember is Maria putting him beneath the sheets and tucking him in. ‘Just a dream,’ he says to Pomadina. ‘Hey quit licking my face. I don’t feel too good. Give me a minute and I get your breakfast. Go eat your biscuits, dumb dog.’
Vincenzo suddenly realizes two things. First, he misses Maria terribly, dreaming of her soft body, pressing her plump breasts into his back. The second thing he assumes was fraudulent, telling huge whoppers. He couldn’t exactly remember what he had told them, but the men had treated him with respect, and that mattered in Satara Bay.
He opens the cupboards, and dog tins roll onto the floor. ‘Pomadina, you should learn to get these yourself. All I do is talk to a mutt who don’t talk back. What are you good for, uh? You eat, sleep and poop. Aah, I go for some fresh air.’
Outside under the veranda, near a huge Lily Pily with flowers dripping pollen, he pulls out the striped hammock. He can’t quite get his legs in, so he smacks it against the outside post. It whips back and just as he catches it, he notices that the little black bird is back again, chit-chittering and fanning its tail under the shade of the laundry tank.
‘Hey, little birdie, whatcha name?’ he calls, sliding his words into a new language, and slowly padding his feet down the back steps. ‘Pomadina! No, naughty girl, you don’t chase it. Good girl,’ he says, stroking the dog’s mane. ‘It’s come again, hey?’
In the aftermath of his hangover, Vincenzo likens the bird’s chattering and tail action to Maria’s tongue. If she wasn’t going to be with him, or on the telephone when he rang, in Greece on holiday or some such thing, then she would be here, disguised as this brash, grass-hopping bird.
For several days, he had heard the bird chirping in the front yard, then out the back. When he hosed the garden, it had flown down at him, squawking incessantly and disappearing again in between the jacaranda blooms. Once, when he was outside at the washtub, the bird had tapped on the window pane. He hadn’t taken any notice of its further antics, until Ronny Williams came to take him to Oyster Bay for a look-see, the bird whirling, landing on the car windscreen. Williams had told him that they were friendly ‘little-creatures’ and if a Willy-Wagtail liked you they would be your protector and constant companion. They also didn’t play havoc in the gutters like those pesky sparrows did.
Now, or perhaps it was his heavy night opening a door of perception, Vincenzo is suddenly aware of the bird’s constant communication.
‘It’s Maria! My Bella, my woman as a bird,’ Vincenzo chuckles. His good fortune making him so excited that nudging the dog forces Pomadina to fall off the veranda and into the garden.
The next day, Vincenzo feeling a little health and vitality not drinking in the evening, opens a packet of cracker biscuits and crunches them onto a plate. He leaves them under the tankstand, where he knows the little bird forages. He collects a few things in the house so that he can lie and wait, hidden in the hammock. Along with a drink, pillow, towel and a Herald newspaper, he has a letter from Joanna. He has read her words before in the evening but wants to read them again. Maria is working in the bread shop and saving for her holiday to Australia. Holiday! Vincenzo is not pleased with that word. ‘Live, live. I want you to live here,’ he hollers. Joanna also writes that her father’s three sisters, Lucy, Riesca and Natasha are also planning to come in May. ‘Well I suppose all three in one bed then,’ he mumbles.
Just as he folds the letter behind his pillow, he hears the familiar sound of the bird. ‘Hey, Maria, what’s the big idea you only wanna come for short stay. Vinneybum needs you all of the time.’
The bird dives under the tankstand, talking as she goes. ‘Tich-tich, tich-tich.’
‘Oh, so you’re gonna tell me something today, hey?’ Vincenzo creeps towards the bird who is perched on top of the tank. ‘Thirsty, hey? Wait there, I get you a bowl of water.’
Vincenzo returns with the water, and with plenty on his mind to ask Maria. He slides the ceramic pottery dish along the boards of the tankstand as close as he can to the Willy-Wagtail. Vincenzo notices all the biscuits are gone. ‘Hungry too, hey? You have to be patient with me, I’m an old man but I be back soon with some more. Don’t go away, little Bella.’
The bird is still there when he returns. He pushes the plate of biscuits towards her. The bird dances back and forth and swans in, fanning as she goes. Vincenzo has brought out a small chair, and there he sits in the shade of the tank, believing in bird talk. ‘No worries, Maria. Long trip, hey? You have to come with me tomorrow, I show you where the café will be and you can live there too.’
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