The Blue Cat

by Roland Graeme

  I approached the entrance, but lingered there to look up and study the tiles from this closer perspective. I tried to decide whether the tile maker had intended the cat to have such vibrantly coloured fur when he’d selected his glazes or whether that intense blue was the result of a “happy accident” when the chemicals in the glaze interacted during the firing process. Either way, the image was a memorable one.

  Before going inside, I turned to see the view of the bay from the hotel’s vantage point. Everywhere I looked, there was a wealth of colour and pattern to choose from for my paintings. The fishing boats drawn up onto the beach gleamed against the tawny sand, painted in jewel-like tones of red, green and blue. Many of the boats had white trim, the white paint reflecting the sunlight more vividly than the whitecaps of the breaking waves. Under one boat, spread-eagled in the shade, sprawled a fisherman in a salmon-pink shirt and turquoise trousers. With languid gestures of his hands, he was cleaning and oiling some small piece of equipment. Beside him lounged in unashamed idleness another man in dove-grey shorts, his sun bronzed torso more luminous than the sand on which he lay.

  I entered the cool oasis of the hotel’s ground floor public space, which I now saw served as a combination of barroom, café and restaurant. Mismatched tables in various sizes and shapes and an equally eclectic assortment of chairs took up much of the floor space. People enjoying breakfast or just cups of morning coffee occupied a few of the tables. An aproned waiter was making the rounds, attending to the customers’ needs.

  Paintings and drawings in every conceivable medium, mounted in an eclectic variety of frames, no two of which seemed to match, covered the walls. I soon realized that all the subject matter was local, which tied the display together. There were views of the town and the harbour, of the surrounding countryside and many depictions of boats in the bay. But the majority of the images were of Il Gato Blu itself. The building’s façade, with its ceramic tile feline, seemed to be a favourite subject.

  Much of one wall was taken up by the bar itself, a long, massive dark wooden affair with a marble countertop. Mirrors in old gilded frames covered the wall behind the bar and allowed patrons to see their reflections.

  At one end of the bar, souvenirs were on display. There was a revolving rack of postcards. Sweatshirts, T-shirts and baseball caps were available for sale, all in the same blue as the background of the tile landscape above the building’s entrance and all featuring the hotel’s name and a reproduction of the fisherman cat. The feline also adorned the side of blue ceramic coffee mugs, and in three-dimensional form lined shelves as a droll stuffed plush toy, complete with that fixed stare.

  On the other end of the bar was installed a particularly impressive example of that fixture of Italian eating and dining establishments, the high-tech coffee machine, with its handles, dials and spigots.

  At the moment, a man manned the coffee machine who was well worth a second or a third glance. I assumed he was an employee, because he looked Italian.

  I think I’ve said that Geoff was handsome, but I couldn’t really describe him as beautiful. This man was beautiful.

  He was my senior, I estimated, by a few years. In fact, he might have been over forty. There was a maturity about him, which only added to his appeal. He had little laugh lines etched into the corners of his eyes and mouth—had it not been for them, he might have passed for thirty.

  He had a light suntan, which emphasized the fact that he was naturally dark. He had black eyes and hair—lots of hair, because aside from a neat little moustache and goatee, he wore his hair very long, shoulder length. It cascaded down around his head with a glossy black luxuriance. In my experience, there is rarely any ambivalence about long hair on men. Either it looks messy and unkempt or it looks great. On this man, it looked great. I tried to imagine what he might look like with a military buzz cut, like Geoff’s, but I couldn’t quite pull that mental image into focus.

  He wore beige khaki trousers, loose fitting, and one of the hotel’s souvenir blue sweatshirts, which was also loose fitting, but not so much so that it could disguise his nicely proportioned and obviously very muscular torso. The silk-screened image of the fisherman cat tightly adorned a pair of solidly rounded pectoral mounds. The man wore an expensive watch on his left wrist and on his right wrist, a gold bracelet made of massive rectangular links. The tips, I couldn’t help thinking, must be good here.

  After he had added steamed milk to a cup of freshly brewed coffee, he looked up, saw me, caught my eye and smiled. It was a very friendly smile—open, unguarded, almost inviting.

  Oh yes, I thought. This one would have no difficulty whatsoever raking in the tips!

  “Buon giorno,” he said. “Benvenuto al Gato Blu.”

  “Grazie. Dove posso trovare il direttore?” I asked, in my best, but slightly halting Italian.

  “Il direttore? Per mia disgrazia, son io.” He came out from behind the bar, carrying the cup and saucer. He scrutinized me, paying special attention to my painting gear—my portable paint box and the collapsible tripod I mounted it on when I worked outdoors. “You must be the gentleman I’m expecting, from London,” he said, switching from Italian to my own sweet tongue.

  “Yes.” I introduced myself and we shook hands. He had a firm grip.

  “How nice to meet you. Give me one of those bags to carry.”

  “Oh no, don’t bother. Finish your coffee.”

  “Trust me, I can drink coffee and carry guests’ luggage at the same time. In my line of work, you learn how to multi-task.” He proceeded to demonstrate his versatility by taking the largest and heaviest of my bags and slinging it over his own shoulder, without spilling a drop. “Let’s get you checked in. My name’s Rick. I own the joint. So, if you need anything or something’s not to your satisfaction, I want you to come right to me and I’ll take care of it.”

  “So you’re a hands-on kind of businessman?”

  “Very much so. Oh, it’s not that my staff isn’t good. They are. And I do know how to delegate, when I have to. It’s just that I hate to. I like to know everything that goes on here and be involved in it.”

  As we spoke, he led me through an archway into the interior of the building. A short hallway led to an airy little reception area with more French windows, these opening onto an enclosed garden on one side of the building. There was a sofa flanked by two armchairs, a coffee table, side tables and a magazine and newspaper rack. An office the size of a closet, about large enough for one person to stand in at a time, served as the actual reception desk. Rick entered this niche. Behind him, I could see the pigeonholes for guests’ mail.

  As Rick got busy on a laptop computer updating my information, I signed the guest register.

  “Is this your first visit to southern Italy?” Rick asked.

  “Yes. It’s the first time I’ve been south of Rome.”

  “I hope you’ll enjoy your stay.”

  “I’m sure I will. This is such a beautiful country.”

  “Yeah, it is, isn’t it? Tell me—are you really a viscount?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Oh, don’t apologize. I’m the one who should apologize to you, for being so nosy. But you’re not quite...what I expected. I expected someone older and tweedier, if you know what I mean, wearing a monocle and smoking a pipe.”

  “I know exactly what you mean—although I’ve never met anybody who actually wears a monocle. I think they went out of style long before either of us was born.”

  “You see, we Americans are fascinated by the whole notion of royalty and a titled aristocracy. It was probably a mistake for our founding fathers not to allow us to have titles. What I’m curious about is whether a viscount has any official duties?”

  “None whatsoever, expect maybe to stay out of trouble, if he can.”

  “And do you stay out of trouble?”

  “Not always.”

  “Good for you. And is there any course of study you have to take, to
prepare you for being a viscount?”

  “No. It’s strictly on-the-job training. No diploma, no license—no nothing.”

  He laughed—not politely, with restraint, but with a great snorting guffaw, which I found delightful. It was spontaneous, boisterous and above all, it was masculine.

  “But I’m holding you up,” he said, looking and sounding not the least bit apologetic. “You’ll want to see your room and get settled.” He struck a bell on the countertop in front of him. “Luigi!” he bellowed, with that same utterly masculine lack of restraint. “Eh, Luigi! Where are you, you lazy, good-for-nothing fuck?” He had switched to rapid-fire Italian, probably not realizing that I was fluent enough in the language to follow him word for word. I owed my fluency, of course, to having tricked with several amiable numbers during my previous travels in Italy. They’d expanded not only my sexual experience, but also my vocabulary.

  Rick sounded the bell again. “Luigi! Eh, Luigi! Ah, when I get hold of your lazy ass—“ He smiled at me and shrugged, waving his hands in a very Italian gesture indicating helplessness.

  Luigi finally appeared, an amiable young man with heavily lidded eyes, which made him look as though he was sleepwalking. He wore designer black denim jeans and one of the hotel’s blue logo T-shirts.

  “Son of a whore,” Rick greeted him, still in Luigi’s own language. “Get your hand off your cock for once and take care of this gentleman. He is an Englishman and an artist, so behave yourself around him.”

  Luigi looked at me calmly, in a speculative fashion.

  I felt a need to bring the conversation back to English and neutral topics. “I’m going to have to buy one of those shirts,” I said. “And a sweatshirt, as well. Otherwise, I’ll feel as though I don’t quite fit in.”

  “I can have one of each sent up to your room and put on your bill, if you like,” Rick volunteered.

  “Please do.”

  “What size do you take? A large?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so. Luigi, take the viscount’s things up to number twelve. And do it now, not tomorrow!”

  As I followed Luigi to the elevator, I couldn’t help feeling flattered by the fact that Rick had successfully guessed my shirt size. Had he been checking me out? Well, if he had, it was no more than tit for tat, since I’d sure as hell been checking him out, the whole time we were talking. I was confident that any man as attractive as the owner of The Blue Cat was used to being admired and wasn’t likely to take offense at it.

  Number 12 was on the third floor. The room was small but comfortable, located in the front of the structure, with a window that opened onto the harbour. The window was equipped with the inevitable window box, exploding with red pelargoniums and purplish-red verbena. I later discovered that they had carried out the feline theme, to a greater or lesser extent, in each of the hotel’s guest rooms. In the case of mine, the cats in residence took the form of stylized jungle creatures, prowling about amidst an equally unrealistic depiction of tree trunks and foliage on the pale blue wallpaper. Otherwise, they had decorated the room tastefully and the bed looked inviting. I was confident I’d be comfortable there.

  After putting my things down, Luigi seemed in no hurry to resume his other duties, so I decided to detain him and pump him for a little information.

  “Do you like working here, Luigi?” I asked him.

  “Of course. Il Gato Blu is the finest hotel on the Amalfi coast,” he assured me.

  “And your boss, Signor Rick? He seems to me to be an amiable sort of a man.” That is, when he wasn’t bawling out Luigi.

  “Oh, he is. Everyone here in San Floriano likes him.” Apparently, Luigi was not the grudge-holding type, or perhaps he was simply too phlegmatic of temperament to mind being yelled at.

  “He used to have a business partner, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, Signor Jed. He and Signor Rick used to run the hotel together. But then Signor Jed went back to the United States.” Luigi pronounced the two men’s names with Italian vowels, so that they emerged from his lips as Jade and Reek. “But they were not only business partners. They were amanti, practically sposi. Very much in love.” Luigi, like most Italians, was obviously an incorrigible gossip.

  “I see. Do you think Signor Jed will ever come back?”

  “I don’t know, signore. He is greatly missed.”

  “No doubt. Well, Luigi, I think I have everything I need, for now.” I handed him a hefty tip. “I want to get settled in, then I think I’ll go downstairs and do some exploring.”

  “Very good, Your Excellency. Thank you. Should you require anything while you are staying with us—anything at all—you have only to ask me and I will provide it. Anything. I am the best one who works here,” he boasted, shamelessly. “The others are lazy and useless. I pride myself on knowing how to take care of a gentleman’s needs.”

  The tip had made the somnolent Luigi perk up a bit. The sly look on his face and the emphasis he placed on the word anything would have been hard to misread. The little tart was making a pass at me. I wondered whether Rick would concur with his employee’s smug self-assessment. The lad did look capable of taking care of certain needs, gentlemanly or otherwise.

  “I’ll keep that in mind, fanciullo mio. But for now, you can make yourself scarce.”

  “As you wish, Your Excellency.”

  “And for God’s sake, don’t call me Your Excellency.”

  “As you wish, signore. Are you traveling incognito? Have you checked in under an assumed name?”

  “No. I just like to be treated like anybody else, without any fuss.”

  “I understand perfectly, signore.”

  Luigi was amusing, and I suspected I could do worse, should I want some male companionship during my stay in San Floriano.

  Nevertheless, it was Rick who had made an immediate impression on me, and a highly favourable one. In the days that followed, I saw him often, and I admit I made a point of observing him, not always furtively.

  At first I was taken aback by his strong American English, which seemed undiluted despite the years he’d lived in Italy. It had a harsh twang to it, and he used typical American slang expressions, some of them coarse, but of course, he’d spent most of that time living intimately with a fellow American, to say nothing of having regular interactions with tourists from his native land.

  When he conversed with his employees or with the locals, he could not have sounded more idiomatically Italian. He fell naturally into that singsong manner of speech the Italians have, which makes everything they say sound musical. When the conversation became more animated, the music could turn strident, liberally punctuated with obscenities. Italian men tend to shout at each other, even when they aren’t agitated. It must be a way of venting their excess testosterone. Rick yelled and cursed at his employees and they yelled and cursed right back. Like Luigi, none of them ever seemed to take any offense.

  I took note of all this later and gradually.

  After that first conversation with Luigi, I unpacked quickly, then went back downstairs, eager to go exploring.

  One of the first places I investigated was the nearby art supply store. They had everything I needed, so I didn’t regret my decision to pack lightly for this trip. I could indeed buy anything I might need here, and in addition the shop was accustomed to packing and shipping finished paintings anywhere in the world. I could have everything I produced during my visit sent directly to London—where these new creations could join the rest of my unsold masterpieces in storage.

  I went for a walk in the hot noonday sun, threading my way through narrow streets that had been laid out with a blithe disregard for geometry and admiring the local architecture. There was a main piazza not far from the waterfront, with an endearingly clunky church, along with a row of municipal buildings and shops, all of which had loggias opening onto the square. I bought a lemon ice from a vendor’s cart, but the treat, refreshing though it was, only whetted my
appetite. I was beginning to feel hot and sweaty, and I realized it was already the middle of the afternoon—time for lunch.

  I returned to The Blue Cat, which was doing a brisk lunchtime business.

  When another waiter dared to approach my table, Luigi shooed him away. He would take care of Sua Excellenza, Il Viscontino, as he dubbed me then and there, in a loud voice, making sure that everybody within earshot knew that a genuine English blueblood graced the dining room. Il Viscontino means the little viscount or the young viscount. I cringed, but the nickname stuck and as far as the residents of San Floriano were concerned, Il Viscontino I became from that moment on.

  I ordered the special of the day, poached sea bass, after Luigi told me it was so fresh it had been swimming in the ocean only a few hours ago. His boss, Rick, made a practice of going to the quay to meet those fishermen who took their boats out in the pre-dawn hours, so he could inspect their catch when they returned to shore. He bought whatever looked especially good to him right off the boats and carried it back to the kitchen.

  When the dish arrived at my table, it looked and smelled delicious. They served the fish with a side dish of spaghetti alla puttanesca, and the taste was no disappointment. I was hungry, and I attacked my plate with gusto.

  I heard some bellowing from the kitchen, with someone casually throwing that favourite Italian epithet cazzo about. Cazzo literally means penis, but the Italians use it the same way we use fuck. A moment later, Rick emerged, looking flushed and flustered and wiping his hands on a rag. He looked around the dining room in that alert way restaurant owners have of being on the lookout for potential problems, then he saw me. He tossed the rag onto the countertop and came over to where I was sitting.

  “How’s the chow? Up to your expectations?”

  “It’s wonderful. My compliments to the chef.”

  “I’ll tell Francesca. She’ll be pleased. She does most of the cooking here. She smokes, drinks, swears like a sailor and likes to have sex with men young enough to be her grandsons. With two of them at once, occasionally. She claims that a woman has to have regular orgasms in order to cook well. So I make it my business to steer eligible bachelors her way. I don’t like it when Francesca fucks the young married men—their wives and their mothers-in-law tend to show up and make a scene. God knows I’m already accused of running a bawdy house often enough.”