The most surprising thing about Gino Tassi, in relation to the Signora anyhow, is how thoroughly Italian he is: mannerisms and dress, love of food and comfort, the way he turns the charm on for almost any female to cross his path. And not a word of her beloved English language ever passes his lips, nor does he show the slightest interest in learning to say so much as ‘hello’.
Should the conversation turn to English the Signora translates for him and he responds accordingly with a smile or a gesture of sympathy. Otherwise they speak Italian ‘for his sake’, as Signora Lami apologetically puts it, as if it is a sacrifice that has to be made.
‘So! Miss Stuart, have you succeeded in finding a school for my son?’
The Signora finally gets around to asking this question a few days into her stay, when she invites Bella to go with her to the tennis club to meet Alec. Signor Tassi has decided to stay behind and write postcards in the garden. Edward, as usual, is stuck to his piano.
‘Well, Signora,’ Bella begins, ‘the difficulty is finding a place for him. The numbers are up considerably this year, it seems.’
‘You have said who he is? His father? His grandmother?’
‘They know who he is, Signora. Everyone does. But it seems many private pupils now want to be part of the regime.’
‘Yes, it’s certainly how Signor Tassi sees it. He advises it indeed most strongly. He thinks it is a very bad idea to be otherwise. That it can be read as disloyalty. I suppose one must at least be seen to make an effort. Do you have a solution, Miss Stuart?’
They come in by the Anglican church, passing through the narrow laneway into the club. Behind the high-ivy wall comes the steady tick-tocking of tennis practice. Bella follows the Signora along the side margins to the further court where Alec is playing. They sit on a nearby spectators’ bench.
‘No solutions, Miss Stuart? This is not very like you!’
‘Well, there is one possibility. But again, there are difficulties. St George’s in San Remo - it used to be the English school? Well, it’s been revised as an Anglo-Italian venture. Boys and girls from all over the world. Mostly from the diplomatic circles. Italians too, of course. It’s not quite a state school - there are fees involved. But it is recognized. In fact the pupils must be enrolled in the Balilla and participate in patriotic ceremonies. I went to see it - do you know Villa Magnolie? Well, it’s a lovely villa really, terraces, gardens, classrooms - very modern. And there’s an impressive art studio too, which Alec would love. The problem is transport. The train station is too far and is a stiff uphill walk anyhow, which would be bad for his asthma, although he does seem to be growing out of that. But in any case the buses are just not reliable enough. It would mean he could often be late, and well - you know how upset he gets about breaking rules.’
‘In fact.’
The Signora says nothing for a few minutes, just watches her son run around the court. Sometimes she returns a bow or a wave from another spectator. Then she resumes. ‘Would you say, Miss Stuart, that this St George’s is merely making a bow to fascism rather than giving it a full embrace?’
‘I think it would be fair to say that, yes.’
She returns her eye to the game. ‘He’s really not very good, is he? I mean, considering the amount of time he spends playing, and the coaching of course. He’s extremely awkward - wouldn’t you say?’
Bella feels a slight stab. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that. I mean he is only nine years old, Signora. And he knows we’re here, which is probably making him nervous. He’s usually much, much—’
‘He is almost ten, Miss Stuart. Could he be a boarder, do you think?’
‘A boarder?’
‘Yes. You know, I had always intended for him to go to a boarding school in England when his age was right, but I changed my mind. Do they allow boarders in St George’s?’
‘Yes, but I don’t know if…’
‘You don’t know if it’s a good idea, Miss Stuart - is that what you are saying? You don’t know if he will be able for it?’
Bella looks away.
‘You worry about my son, Miss Stuart, I think.’
‘No. Of course not.’
‘It means, at least, you love him,’ she sighs. The Signora slaps her hands on her lap and stands up. ‘Do you think we might refer to this St George as - San Giorgio? With perhaps the emphasis on the fascista element?’
‘Oh yes, the prospectus is full of all that, actually.’
‘Excellent. Call him in, would you?’
Bella walks along the side of the court towards Alec. The coach is shouting instructions, and Alec stumbling behind a racket that appears to be far too big for him. She hooks her fingers in through the wire, then waits until he catches her eye and comes running.
Later that evening Alec is told, ‘My dear, we have some news for you.’
‘Yes, Mamma?’
‘From next term you will no longer be a private pupil. You will be going to school with other children. Would you like that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Good. You are to go to school in San Remo. San Giorgio’s it’s called. Also you will be joining the Balilla. Won’t that be fun? Miss Stuart has been very clever and arranged it all for you.’
‘Will there be uniforms?’
‘Of course there’ll be uniforms! This is Italy after all - there are always uniforms!’
‘But how will I get to school, Mamma?’
‘Miss Stuart will take you.’
‘The last time we went to San Remo we had to wait and wait, and the autobus was so late and—’
‘There will be no need to worry about the autobus. Goodness no. We will buy a motor car! Can you drive, Miss Stuart?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Never mind, you can learn. Tomorrow we will go to San Giorgio’s and book a place for Alec to start in October. Then we will find someone who can teach Miss Stuart how to drive. So we will have a female chauffeur - a chauffeuse as the French say! Are we not a modern household after all? And when Miss Stuart learns how to drive, we shall buy her a car - what do you say, Miss Stuart?’
‘I don’t know what to say,’ Bella laughs.
It is not the only news Signora Lami has to break during her holiday. Her next and final bomba comes the day before she goes back to Sicily. They have just returned from lunch in the old town of La Pigna, walking all the way back to Bordighera, the Signora in her lemon dress, turning heads on every street and cafe terrace along the way. Signor Tassi, in cream linen, looking as if he could burst with delight.
Then tea in the Bordighera tearooms is proposed, which Edward tries to squirm out of, just as Bella has been considering staging her own ‘bit of a headache’. But the Signora is determined to ‘make a day of it’ as she seems to have done of so many days since her arrival. Boat trips and picnics; carriage jaunts and car hires; Monte Carlo, Menton, Nice. The Hanbury Gardens; jazz suppers and tea dances. They’ve had the lot. Not to mention clay-pigeon shooting, tennis matches, golf games, hill-hiking and a very close call in the trampoline competition, which mercifully they’d been too late to enter. There have been awkward dinners with guests the Signora appeared not to know all that well. Afternoon teas in the garden where the saucers and spoons seemed to do all the talking. That her companion should have a full and varied holiday seems to have been the order of each day. Even if it often appeared that poor Signor Tassi would rather sit on a terrace or stroll through town, watch and be watched, nothing else to do otherwise but prepare his bella figura for the passeggiata, and soundly sleep between meals.
Now, after speaking mostly Italian for days, and eating lunch in a trattoria rusticana, the diners with gingham napkins tied round their necks like babies, and the sight of so much food making Bella’s stomach crawl, it seems funny to be sitting on the lawn of the tearooms, at a table stiff with white linen and teacups, listening to English accents all around, talk of cricket and the Henley Regatta.
‘You are quiet today, Miss Stuar
t,’ the Signora says as she pulls off her gloves. ‘Have you something on your mind?’
‘I’m fine, just a bit of a head—’
‘I am glad to hear it. I thought perhaps you were worrying about something. Or perhaps your back was giving you trouble?’
Then Bella, without thinking - or as she would decide later, without taking account of the wine she’d had at lunch - blabs out, ‘Actually, I had a letter from my father yesterday. He’s coming over in August.’
‘Really? Here to Bordighera?’
‘Yes, on his way to the Olympic Games in Berlin. I was just thinking, my God, I haven’t seen him in over three years.’
‘But how lovely, Miss Stuart. Which date in August?’
‘The first week, I think. Just for a few days.’
‘Perfect! He must be our guest.’
‘No,’ Bella says.
‘No?’ Signora Lami laughs. ‘What’s the matter, Miss Stuart, don’t you like your father?’
‘Of course I do, it’s, well, I mean, you’re very kind but he’ll be staying at the Hotel Angst, it’s all been arranged.’
‘The Angst? But that’s only down the road. He may just as well be with us. You must write at once and tell him to cancel. Tell him I insist absolutely that he be our guest.’
‘Actually Signora, he’d probably prefer the Angst. You see, he’ll be on his honeymoon.’
‘He’s to be remarried! Oh my dear! Congratulations. Who is he to marry - do you know?’
‘Yes I do. Mrs Jenkins is her name, she’s a widow.’
‘How lovely for him. How lovely for you all.’ She turns to Signor Tassi and translates.
‘Ahhh,’ he beams, stands up and, taking Bella’s face in his hands, kisses her on both cheeks. ‘Auguri, auguri.’ When he sits down again he leans into Signora Lami and, heads together, they exchange a few whispered words.
‘We may as well tell you our news now, as later,’ Signora Lami laughs. ‘We are also to be married! And we hope, if it can be arranged, in August. Can you believe it? August of the second weddings, we shall have to call it!’
Signor Tassi reaches over and takes her hand, then they both bashfully laugh.
Edward is the first to pull himself together, offering his hand and congratulations. Bella quickly follows. Alec, flicking through a deck of cards, appears not to have heard a word.
‘Well, Alec?’ his mother says. ‘Have you nothing to say to your mamma?’
‘No, Mamma.’
‘Well, to your new papa then? Have you nothing to say to him?’
Alec stands up and, stepping up to Tassi, flings the cards at him. Then he juts out his neck and, opening his mouth as wide as it will go, silently growls at him, a look of hatred and hurt on his face.
The table falls silent for a few painful seconds, each one avoiding the other’s eyes until the Signora speaks. ‘You may take Alec home now, Miss Stuart. I believe he must be overtired. In any case I don’t wish to see him again this evening, or for that matter before I leave Bordighera.’
*
At the beginning of August Signora Lami, now Signora Tassi, hosts a house party over several days to celebrate her marriage. A small private ceremony has already taken place in the South of France. No guests from either Italian household were invited, not even Alec. Signor Tassi’s elderly brother, along with a cousin of the Signora’s from Turin, were the only witnesses.
It made better sense, the Signora would later explain, to marry in France where there was less red tapes and fewer bustarelle to slip under the bureaucratic table. Nobody likes to ask why red tape and bribes should be necessary in the first place - after all, the Signora has been a widow for over three years. It is left to Rosa in the kitchen to utter the phrases ‘mixed marriages’ and ‘godless France’.
After the civil ceremony in France, the witnesses having been dispatched, back to Naples for Tassi’s elder brother, and in the case of the Signora’s cousin, to a watercolour painting course in Cap Martin, the honeymoon began. The first two nights were spent in the Hotel Negresco in Nice, which the groom had loved, but the bride found a little vulgar. Then another few days on a yacht, which had delighted the bride but occasionally caused the groom to be sick over the side. The yacht took them up the coast from Nice to Portofino and then returned them to Bordighera.
*
As they dock a photographer is waiting, along with the house guests, heavily armed with flowers and good wishes, as per the Signora’s instructions.
From Naples, the Tassi family - another of Gino’s brothers, a widower, and his three adult sons. All high-spirited, hungry and fond of a drink. From Switzerland, a middle-aged couple that say little but smile all the time. A buck-toothed man from London, eager to discuss and observe fascism at any opportunity, and who refers to the British fascist leader, ‘Sir Oswald Mosley or Tom - as he is known to his closest friends.’
A few local residents are also present, none of whom Bella has ever seen or heard of before. Apart from Mrs Cardiff and her brother James, the manager of the English bank in Bordighera.
The cousin of the Signora, who had been a witness at the wedding, is called Eugenia, and like the Signora is a beauty in her late twenties. Her father, the Signora’s uncle, a soft-spoken, tender-eyed German aristocrat, who is extremely dull, but has impeccable manners and speaks perfect English as well as Italian, joins her in Bordighera.
By the second evening Eugenia, who from the start has made it clear that she is utterly appalled by the unrefined table manners of Gino Tassi’s nephews, can no longer contain herself. She stomps out of the dining room during the primo piatto. The Signora follows her, forgetting to close the door behind her, so that everyone at the table can hear Eugenia’s complaints, which unfortunately are made in Italian. She cannot sit and watch men eat like monkeys, Eugenia says, spaghetti swinging out of their mouths. It disgusts her, that’s all. Nor can she listen to another greasy slurp. She will not share a table with such selvaggi!
Bella expects a terrible scene - humiliation followed by outrage. In fact the men from Naples turn out to be delighted by the insult, slapping the table and throwing back their heads to laugh (mouths wide open and full of food). At this moment the quiet German politely asks to be excused and goes out to the hall, where in his perfect Italian he tells Eugenia, if she doesn’t gather up her manners and get back inside, he will put his fist through her face. This amuses the Neapolitans all the more and for the rest of the visit they repeat the phrase, by word or by mime, every time the shame-faced Eugenia comes within range.
With all these guests to accommodate, it had earlier been decided that Bella, Alec and Elida should give up their rooms and move to one of the hotels in town and that Edward would accompany them. As it is August, and the better hotels are booked from year to year, they settle on the Jolanda. More like a guest house, it is favoured by Czechoslovakians with enough children between them to distract Alec rather than overwhelm him. He has not taken to the wedding at all well - nor to his new papa, nor to the intrusion of guests in his house. He cringes anytime he runs into the Neapolitans, who ruffle his hair and pluck at his stomach in an attempt to tickle him. Also Eugenia, forever kissing his face and telling him how much she loves him. Since the celebrations have started in fact, Alec has been whinging a lot and has hardly come out from behind Bella’s skirt.
The Jolanda suits him, with its quiet sitting rooms, and the table in the window where he can stay with his pencils and sketch pad undisturbed except for the landlady who pops in from time to time with caramelle and crescents of melon. Bella is happy here too: it’s like being on holiday in England only with better weather. Sand in the hallway, the echo of strange voices everywhere, men drinking beer in the garden, sing-songs around the piano in the evenings with an unusually jolly Edward at the helm. It’s nice having somewhere to escape to, even if it does mean using Alec’s naps and shyness as a frequent excuse.
Otherwise it’s been beck-and-call throughout, but at least she gets t
o practise her driving. Up and down the via Romano, cabbying guests to the beach, the capo, the train station or wherever their whims take them, in her brand new car which the Signora has managed to get on approval from a garage in Ventimiglia. A Topolino - a baby mouse, named for its peculiar shape and non-descript colour. Bella did try suggesting to the Signora that something a little older and a lot less shiny might be in keeping for someone who is still a novice at the driving game. But, as Edward points out, the Signora is the Signora, and will always do and hear just as she pleases.
On Friday morning of the wedding party, a telegram arrives from the American cousins.
POSITIVELY OVERJOYED. HEARTIEST AUGURI. SIMPLY GOT TO VIEW THAT LUCKY MAN. STOPPING OVER EN ROUTED TO SWITZERLAND. LEAVE PARIS SUNDAY. EXCEPT MONDAY PM. BEST TO ALL, A & G NELSON.
At this point Edward decides now might be a good time to take his annual leave.
‘But you never take annual leave, other than a weekend or two - at least not since I’ve been here,’ Bella says when he tells her.
‘Well, I’m making up for it now. Six weeks in fact. A walking tour of Germany and Austria.’
’Six weeks? Does the Signora know this?’
‘Yes, and she’s all for it. She’s staying here till the end of August anyway, and she’s asked Cesare to move into one of the guest rooms until I come back. Just so there’s a man about - her words, not mine.’
‘Cesare? Is he supposed to protect us from intruders?’
‘He can always breathe on them.’
‘Shut up, Edward, you’re not funny. When do you go?’
‘When do the Americans arrive?’
‘Monday p.m., the telegram said.’
‘I’m leaving Monday, as it happens - a.m. Shame.’
‘Oh, very smart, Edward,’ Bella says. ‘Very smart indeed.’
But not smart enough for the American cousins, who, having had their fill of Paris, arrive two days early. Storming in on the company on Saturday evening just at the hour of the aperitivo, with their slinky laughs and witty asides, loud as they ever were, all gesture and cosmetics, everyone running around in their wake, until luggage, cigarette lighters, ashtrays, drinks and places at an already over-full table have all been arranged, without either having to lift a finger.
Last Train from Liguria (2010) Page 16