“Not at all,” Stanley said and watched as she settled herself primly on the seat, smoothing her dress beneath her. “Well?” he asked.
“Buy me a drink and I’ll tell you,” she said.
“Tell me and I’ll buy you a drink,” he said.
“You were meant to be sitting next to me,” said Shirley.
“I am sitting next to you.”
“Not here. At dinner.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. It was the only empty place in the entire room. I checked.” She gave him a look of counterfeit annoyance. “You stood me up; I hope you realize that. For that alone you owe me a drink.”
“Fair enough,” Stanley said and motioned for the bartender. “You’ll have to forgive me,” he said, turning back to her. “It’s just that I don’t hold much with these sort of things.”
“Really? This is my third one.”
Afterward, they went to his room. And when Stanley woke up the next morning with Shirley beside him, the thought of going back to Toronto and his empty house didn’t seem as appealing as it had the previous afternoon.
Stanley Lesser’s first wife was named Gloria, and they were married on a bitterly cold February day in 1962 at a small church in the town of Uxbridge, where he’d found a position with the local high school. The church no longer existed, at least no longer existed as a church. It had been disestablished and sold off to private owners who turned it into a gallery for local crafts people. He went to visit it the summer after Gloria died, and when he told the gallery director why he’d come, the man tried to sell him a ceramic vase.
He and Shirley were married at Fantasia Farms, a venue in the Riverdale valley that catered specifically to those who wished for something other than a church wedding. They had both already gone that route, Shirley reasoned, and why shouldn’t they do something a little out of the ordinary? There were gardens and fountains, and statues of wood nymphs and gnomes, and the rumour of wildlife in the trees. Their vows were exchanged under a trellis on one side of a shallow fabricated pond that held varicoloured goldfish, while their guests stood watching from the other side. Then it was into a low-ceilinged, dark-panelled ballroom with a glass wall that looked out onto a stone terrace for the reception dinner. They kissed to clinking glasses, and afterward tables were cleared away for dancing. His children seemed pleased for him, if not altogether happy. Shirley did not have children of her own, but did have many nieces and nephews. One, a young man about the age of Stanley’s son, drank far too much and tipped over a table of drinks before someone took him outside to get some much-needed fresh air. They saw him there, asleep on a patio chair, when they slipped away near the end of the night.
The hard soles of her sandals clicked on the pavement as she made her way back down the roadway toward Marina Grande. Stanley lagged behind. At the bottom of the hill she stopped and waited for him, her hands on her hips.
“You might have at least stayed in there with me,” she said accusingly.
“I didn’t really see the point,” Stanley offered with a sigh. “He’d already made up his mind.”
“Do you want to know what that man did after you left?” She paused as if to let the implications of her question sink in. “He pretended he couldn’t speak English, that’s what he did. Shrugged his bloody shoulders and said, ‘Non capisco, signora.’”
Stanley had to suppress the urge to shrug his own shoulders. There was, he knew, little that he could say that would satisfy her, so he said nothing. It was better to suffer her stare than provoke her with the wrong words.
“Well, I’ll tell you right now,” she said, jerking her thumb toward the queue of orange buses near the seawall opposite. “I’m sure as hell not taking one of those.”
On this point Stanley was in full agreement. There was almost nothing as unpleasant as riding on a local bus. They’d learned their lesson the day before when they’d caught the orange bus from their hotel to the Piazza Tasso in Sorrento. Not only was it unbearably crowded, but there were no seats to speak of; all the passengers had to stand. And twice Stanley had fallen against the stern-faced conductor when the driver swerved to avoid oncoming traffic.
“We can always take the funicular,” Stanley suggested.
He had actually been looking forward to taking the strange railway-cum-cable-car contraption after having seen pictures of it in the brochures at their hotel. But he could tell by the look on Shirley’s face that this was not the answer she was after.
“No,” she said matter-of-factly. “We’ll take one of those.” She pointed toward the taxi rank beside the hydrofoil-ticket kiosk, then started in its direction without waiting for his reply.
It was their honeymoon, but they didn’t like to call it that; instead, they called it their trip.
Shirley explained this to the couple across the coach aisle while Stanley leaned his head against the window and feigned sleep.
“We were actually married four months ago,” Shirley said and patted his hand.
She was talking, Stanley realized, to cheer herself up. It had been a difficult flight, an overly long charter with a two-hour stopover at Exeter to collect an English tour group. After claiming the baggage from the carousel at the airport in Naples they’d had to find their assigned coach. Somehow Stanley had managed to get them on the wrong one. Discovering his mistake, he had to rummage through the cargo well for their suitcases, an annoyance to both Shirley and the coach driver, who stood by, his eyes shielded by dark glasses, refusing to render assistance. When they did find their own coach, Stanley had to stow the luggage, again without the aid of the driver. Then the only vacant seats were at the rear, and by that time Shirley was already hot and tired, so that the added discomfort of having to make their way down the narrow aisle put her in an even worse mood.
“Our hotel is called the Mercato,” he heard Shirley say. “It’s supposed to be quite lovely. Do you know it?”
“I’ve heard of it, yes,” the man across the aisle said. “On the small side. One of those family-run places, if I’m not mistaken. In Sant’Agnello.”
He could feel Shirley stiffen beside him.
“Really? We were made to understand that it was in Sorrento.”
“All pretty much the same now,” the man said. He and his wife came yearly to the Sorrentine Peninsula. “At one time they were separate villages: Meta, Piano di Sorrento, Sant’Agnello. Still, it’s an easy walk into Sorrento proper; or you can always catch the orange bus.”
“I see,” Shirley said. “And where are you staying?”
“Us, we’re at the Excelsior. It’s on Piazza Teatro Tasso. Gorgeous spot. Overlooking the sea. Ibsen once lived there, you know.”
“Well,” Shirley said, “that does sound nice.”
When the tour group representative, who’d been indifferently pointing out the sights during the hour-and-a-half drive from the airport, called out for the Mercato, Stanley and Shirley were the only ones to answer. She hurried them along, and the driver, who had simply stopped the coach in the middle of the busy roadway, retrieved their suitcases from the luggage compartment and dropped them rudely on the sidewalk.
Stanley looked around. “Where’s the hotel?” he asked the representative as she climbed back aboard the coach.
“Oh, it’s just around the corner and down a bit.”
“And what about our bags?” Shirley demanded.
The representative, a freckle-faced and fair-haired Irish girl of no more than twenty, offered a sweet, well-rehearsed smile.
“It’s really not so far,” she said. “I’m sure you can manage.” And with a hiss, the door of the coach swung closed.
At the Mercato, which was indeed on the small side, though quaint in its smallness, if a little tired looking, they found that their room was not yet ready. It was still being cleaned, the proprietor explained. He was a frail man with a bruised complexion who wore dark trousers and shirt sleeves that showed a vest beneath. He invited them to have a drink in the bar, and S
tanley and Shirley followed as he led them to a small well-lighted room off the lobby. It was a pleasant little space, Stanley thought: narrow, with a cool marble floor and tall French windows that opened onto the cobbled side street. He had a tall glass of cold beer. Shirley had white wine, but she found it bitter and didn’t like that the chairs they sat on were plastic.
The taxi dropped them in the Piazza Vittorio in Anacapri and the driver told them that he would be back in an hour to pick them up and take them to see the Faraglioni. Stanley didn’t like the manner in which the man pointed at his watch as he spoke, as if the concept of time might be foreign to them. But Shirley laughed and placed a hand on the driver’s arm and said, “Don’t you worry, Antonio, we’ll be here. On the dot.”
She had flirted with him the entire drive, but Stanley had taken little notice. He’d been more concerned with watching the road. It wound its way precariously up from the port, skirting the boxy whitewashed houses that hemmed it in on both sides, making every bend a blind one that hid oncoming traffic from view until the very last moment. Coming around one such bend, Antonio—he’d introduced himself even before Stanley and Shirley climbed into the taxi—had to quickly jump onto the brakes to stop them from crashing headlong into one of the dreaded orange buses. The disaster averted, the next few minutes were taken up with Antonio and the bus driver arguing over which of them should give way to the other. In the end, the bus driver simply put his vehicle into gear and began moving forward, necessitating a quick reverse on Antonio’s part. But he gave only enough room so that mere inches afforded passage.
From there it was onto the twisting two-lane blacktop that hugged the cliffside to Anacapri. All that separated their little open-air taxi from a sheer drop to the rocky coastline below was a flimsy-looking green metal railing—like the banister on a stairwell, Stanley thought. Just glancing out his side of the car caused him palpitations. It didn’t help matters that Antonio spent more effort turned round talking to Shirley than he did on navigating the narrow slip of asphalt.
“Did you hear that?” she said at one point, slapping Stanley’s arm to get his attention. “Antonio’s driven Robert De Niro. And others besides, haven’t you, Antonio?”
“Yes,” Antonio shouted, turning almost completely in his seat so that he could look directly at Stanley. “Many. I have driven many.”
“I wish you would keep your eyes on the road,” Stanley said as politely as his fear would allow him.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Shirley said, slapping him again. “He knows these roads like the back of his hand. Don’t you, Antonio?”
“Yes,” said Antonio, shooting Stanley a sly grin. “Like the back of my hand.” And he swerved the car ever so slightly toward the guardrail and Stanley dug his fingers deeper into the upholstery.
The evening before they’d had dinner at the Mercato. Stanley said that, as it was included in the package, they should at least give it a try. He didn’t tell Shirley that the real reason they were eating at the hotel was that he felt obligated. The previous night, when he’d been waiting downstairs in the bar for Shirley to finish getting ready, the landlord had asked if they would be in for dinner. When Stanley told the man that they thought they might try O’Parrucchiano, a place that had caught Shirley’s eye, he looked downcast.
“Yes,” he said rather sulkily. “It is very good. Very nice ”
“Tomorrow,” Stanley said. “Tomorrow we will eat here.”
At this the landlord brightened. “Good, good,” he smiled. “Tomorrow.”
He seemed happier still when Stanley and Shirley walked into the dining room the next night; it was as if they had kept a promise he’d expected to be broken. He met them at the door and showed them to a table by an open window. A soft breeze billowed the curtains, which the landlord made a fuss about tying back, before hurrying off to fetch a bottle of wine.
The dining room was large and airy, and the tables, covered with white linen, were placed in such a way as to afford intimacy without being obviously separated from one another. The walls were hung with crude pastel renderings of the fishing villages that dotted the Sorrentine Peninsula. They lent a homespun atmosphere to the place. The serving staff, who moved between the half-occupied tables and chatted with the guests as they portioned out the green salad and pasta from large metal bowls, reinforced this impression. Stanley found that he much preferred this to O’Parrucchiano and its ill-mannered waiters, even if the fare was somewhat less appetizing.
It was just after their salad plates had been cleared away that the elderly couple approached their table.
“Would you mind awfully much,” the man said as he pulled out a chair, “if we joined you?”
The question appeared rhetorical, seeing as the woman was seated before Stanley had a chance to reply.
“We do so like to meet new people on our trips,” the man stated as he took a chair for himself. “I’m Reginald Hopkins, but please call me Reg. And this,” he performed a brief but gallant sweep of his hand, “is my wife, Domenica.”
Stanley handled their own introductions rather awkwardly, and then sat in awe as Domenica called over the landlord and spoke to him in Italian, in a way that Stanley thought to be unnecessarily brusque.
“Is there something wrong?” he asked her after the landlord went away.
“Nothing at all,” Reginald answered in his wife’s place. “Just want to make certain we’re not getting yesterday’s stale pasta. You must ask, you know. Giuseppe’s a lovely man, but he will try to pass off the leftovers for economy’s sake.”
There were a few uncomfortable moments at the start, the familiarity of the new arrivals catching Stanley and Shirley off their guard. But things soon settled down and Stanley found that he enjoyed their company. Shirley was quiet for the most part, nodding politely as their dinner companions chattered away. They had met and married, Reginald explained, during the war, when he served as an orderly with the British 10th Field Surgical Unit at Castellamare di Stabia. After the war, he’d studied medicine at Nottingham, before he and Domenica settled in Oxford, opening a practice that he’d retired from only two years earlier. “Eighty-one,” Domenica said, only the faintest trace of her Italian accent showing itself, “and still he put up a fuss.”
With coffee the talk turned to the local interests.
“The Amalfi Drive is, of course, something to behold,” Reginald said. “There is, for my money, nothing that compares to it in beauty.”
“We’ve booked ourselves on the tour for the day after tomorrow,” Shirley offered, making her first real effort to join the conversation.
“No, no,” Reginald said, shaking his head. “A coach is not the way to do it, I’m afraid. All herded together like sheep, watching everything through tinted glass. No, you must rent a car so that you can take your time. So that you can stop where you want to, rather than where they tell you. Cash in your tickets, my dear.”
“They’re non-refundable.” Stanley shrugged.
“Ah, now that is too bad,” Reginald replied. “Still, what you want to do to make amends is get yourselves on the ferry and visit Naples. Bloody marvellous place, that is.”
“Oh, but it’s full of thieves,” Shirley said. “Every guidebook says so.”
Now Domenica spoke: “I’m Neapolitan,” she said flatly.
A lull fell over the table, and Stanley felt uncomfortable again.
“Of course it is true,” Domenica said, breaking the uncomfortable silence, her voice all sweetness. “But then one can find horrible people most anywhere.”
Anacapri was quiet, most of the shops closed for lunch. They wandered about the narrow streets, talking, when they did, in hushed tones as if in a church or a library. It was such a peaceful place, Stanley thought, and decided he preferred it to Sorrento, which seemed to be chaotic at every hour. But Shirley found it boring.
“It’s like a ghost town,” she said and suggested they have a drink before going back to find their taxi.
It took some searching, but they found a little café on a small street that led off of Piazza San Nicola. It wasn’t much to speak of, just a few tables and an awning. The table they took had dirty cups on it and Stanley had to shoo away the flies. When the waiter finally came outside, Stanley ordered two caffè americano and watched as the man, the front of his apron stained, shifted the empty cups to another table. After the coffee was delivered, Shirley sent Stanley back inside to get more milk, which was brought to them, hot and frothy, a few minutes later.
“I don’t care what anyone says,” Shirley said to him in a loud voice. “The Italians don’t know how to make coffee.”
At a far table, a young woman looked up and caught Stanley’s eye. She was sitting with an older couple and another woman close to her age—her parents and sister, Stanley assumed. He smiled and was relieved when she offered a gentle smile in return. He hoped that she had not understood what Shirley said, but thought it unlikely. When she turned her gaze away, Stanley continued to watch her. Her patrician beauty struck him. Her hair was so dark as to look black, and was long and straight, and caught the glare of the sun that shone down on her exposed table. She had smooth olive skin, deepened, he imagined, by time spent lying at the side of a pool or on a beach. Her face in repose took on a serious, almost sombre aspect, but when she smiled it grew radiant with generous goodwill. It was a lovely face. It made him think of Gloria. She too had had a lovely face. Not like this woman’s, though; Gloria’s complexion had been sallow, and her cheeks had grown jowly when she was still quite young, but when she’d smiled it had brought about a similar effect. Stanley had loved Gloria’s smile and had always done his utmost to keep it on her lips, even when she was ill.
Then Shirley said, “Come on,” and gave his arm a shove. “We’ll miss Antonio.”
Stanley swallowed his coffee, which was bitter but satisfying. He found the waiter inside the café and paid the bill while Shirley waited in the street. On his way out, the young woman caught his eye again.
Somewhat self-consciously, he said, “Buongiorno.”
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