In January 2022 the exercise we’d set was to write a story inspired by this photograph of a street scene in Monreale, Sicily.
This is Marianna MacLeod’s story.
I like to keep an eye on them, the kids, the ones ages with Vincenzu, my grandson. Or at least the age he would have been.
Every day, Mrs Russo and I spend at least an hour visiting with each other on our balconies, calling out our news, gossip and opinions over the sounds of the street down below. She and Eduardo Russo are relative newcomers, only twenty-five years as residents of Monreale Street. She doesn’t like to be reminded.
She prides herself on her superior pot plants, following every fashion and fad that the Milanese glossy magazines can come up with. Does she think that torturing nature into contortions never intended, impresses anyone in this neighbourhood?
On my balcony the lilies still lie dormant in their pot, waiting for the longer days and the warmth of the sun to return. The yearly ritual of waiting only increases my pleasure in their intense colours and scent. They remind me of village evenings when everything smells cleaner and fresher after the heat of the day.
Mrs Russo and I fell out again, today.
She insisted that the Giordano boy had intended to make off with something from a van in the street. She had been watching, ( as had I ). Perhaps it was a wallet, she suggested, that Stefano had left in his Piaggio, the engine idling in the middle of the road, as he ran in with a delivery for Mr Parisi.
‘Just look at those fancy, expensive red sports shoes and the ridiculous hairstyle, all stuck up with hairspray only girls should use’, was the barb that she had thrown at him. ‘Another of those boys dragged up by families, working all hours and no idea what their children are doing. Surely, he couldn’t be trusted with temptation enough for a better man.’
Glaring at her, the bitter words choking in my throat, even at the distance of the street’s breadth I could see the colour drain from her face.
After twenty-five years, she still didn’t know when to be silent.
Campsie Writers Group 