The Antipodeans by Greg McGee

Author:Greg McGee [McGee, Greg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781927262474
Publisher: Upstart Press
Published: 2015-07-08T17:00:00+00:00

Treviso 2014

36

By one o’clock in the morning, Clare had read almost a quarter of the yellowing pages, but seemed no closer to her ultimate quarry, the woman behind the red door in Dorsoduro. And something else came to her out of the instructions her father had left her, and the phraseology he had used: There’s no excuse for what happened, but there is an explanation, though lawyers always say that . . . She remembered enough from her short career in the law to recognise a classic plea in mitigation, delivered after a guilty plea or verdict had been entered. The deed was done, the crime committed: there was an explanation, but no excuse, for what had happened . . . But what had happened? What was he talking about? What crime?

The instructions had obviously been prepared before he left New Zealand, so he couldn’t be referring to the mystery woman, surely. He might be referring to his loveless marriage, but that seemed a bit metaphorical for the father she knew, who had never once discussed that with her. After so much time and so much pain . . . What else could it be? And if it did tie into the mystery woman, why hadn’t she appeared in his diary? If there was no woman, Clare’s actions in Venice were beyond forgiveness.

She couldn’t help skimming ahead silently through the shoe-leather stuff that didn’t much interest her: the details of her father’s journey by train back through Gemona to San Pietro di Livenza, where he’d presented his letter from Arch Scott to Aldo, the proprietor of a bar in San Pietro, and had been welcomed like a long-lost son. Arch Scott had obviously warned them that a Bruce Spence was coming, that he’d seen this boy play, because San Pietro had offered him a playing contract as soon as he arrived. That much might have been anticipated.

San Pietro’s plans for their first season in Serie A were in turmoil because the man who’d been appointed coach had lost his wife in the Gemona quake, and had resigned. So Bruce was also offered a co-coaching role.

That meant learning Italian, so he’d enrolled in a six-week course at the Università per Stranieri in Perugia, down in Umbria, to fill in the summer before the rugby season started. His diary became even more patchy and irregular down there but there was the occasional interesting bit.

June 12 1976.

There’s a General Election coming. Went for a run early this morning before it got hot, up Corso Vannucci and saw buses full of policemen armed with Uzis pouring into the buildings either side. They reappeqred this arvo, creating a buffer between the neo fascisti rallying in the Piazza Italia and the communists rallying in the Piazza Repubblica. I saw armed cops in New South Wales on the NZU tour, but they were carrying holstered pistols, not waving sub-machine guns in your face. I saw the hammer and sickle flag waving in the communist rally and something that looked like a swastika amongst the neo fascisti.

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