Island of Mermaids

by Iris Danbury

  It was Carla who insisted on pairing her with Brian.

  ‘You like the English artist?’ she said the following morning. ‘Perhaps you had dinner with him last night instead of staying here?’

  ‘Only by chance,’ returned Althea guardedly.

  ‘Kent was here, for you understand his house is almost shut and Assunta has so little in store, so I invited him here.’

  Althea congratulated herself on having avoided him. ‘Perhaps you like Brian better than Kent?’ pursued Carla.

  ‘They’re two totally different men. How can one say you like this one or that one better?’

  ‘But of course! You do not like Cristo at all.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true,’ snapped Althea. She didn’t want to hear Cristo’s name ever again or see him, but she could not tell Carla so.

  ‘And I,’ went on Carla more thoughtfully, ‘I like Kent very much, but perhaps—some day—there could be someone else I would like better.’

  ‘Very possibly,’ returned Althea idly. Then a warning almost shouted in her brain. Was Carla cooling off where Kent was concerned? If so, why? Perhaps it might be more enlightening to enquire who? Was there someone who had captured Carla’s fancy just recently? The girl had certainly spent a lot of time at the wedding in the company of Ermanno, but that might have been for the same reasons that Althea had monopolised Brian, merely to pique Kent. Perhaps in Carla’s case, the manoeuvre had worked, for she and Kent had apparently been on excellent terms when they were practising washing away with the smoothing iron.’

  The next day Carla asked Althea, ‘Are you coming to the Marina Grande?’

  ‘Why? Anything special?’

  Carla smiled wickedly. ‘Kent is leaving today for Naples and I thought you would want to say goodbye to him.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Really it is very noble of me to invite you,’ Carla maintained, ‘but I am in a generous mood. I am willing to share him with you today, but that does not mean in the future.’ Althea was slightly puzzled by this more matter-of-fact attitude of Carla, but no doubt it was only a passing phase.

  ‘Actually Kent and I have already said our goodbyes,’ said Althea mildly. That was true, for certainly Kent had made no mistake about that, when he answered her ‘goodnight’ with his definite ‘goodbye’.

  ‘It is not really a farewell,’ Carla explained, ‘for Kent says he will come back to Capri for the carnival at the end of the season.’

  ‘Oh? When is that?’

  ‘At the end of September. Oh, it is always very gay then.’

  ‘Good. I’ll look forward to it,’ replied Althea.

  When Kent was ready to leave, Althea was not among those who wished him a pleasant journey, but she could not resist watching him go. From the shelter of the trees in the grounds of the hotel opposite the villa, she saw him being embraced by Carla’s relatives, then follow Carla into the taxi. Jealousy tore at Althea’s heart and she was .ashamed of its violence. What was the use of rending herself with jealousy when, even though she had not been entirely to blame, she was so damaged in Kent’s eyes?

  Althea put in an appearance at dinner at the villa, but Carla had not returned. The aunts and cousins did not seem unduly worried, so perhaps they had known where Carla was going.

  In fact the girl did not return until the following day when she informed Althea that she had enjoyed herself very much indeed.

  ‘I went with Kent to this place where there is much old monuments and statues. Broken heads and pieces of angels and columns, things like that.’

  ‘Did Kent buy anything?’

  ‘Yes. He found the head of a small boy in red stone.’

  ‘Terra-cotta?’

  ‘That’s what he called it. Then also he found a beautiful wolf in some kind of dark blue stone or marble. This one had a foot broken and the people said they could mend it with a new foot, but Kent said he did not want it mended, but just as it was!’

  ‘Was it a really old or antique piece dug up from somewhere?’ asked Althea.

  Carla shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Then he asked if they had any mermaids. They said no, but they could easily make him one if he wanted it.’

  ‘And did he order one?’ Althea was interested by this reference to mermaids. He was evidently still attached to his operatic idea about the mermaids.

  ‘Oh, Kent became quite angry and said he would not buy one that was made. It must be old, he said.’

  Althea smiled. ‘Next time he goes there, the people will show him what looks like a very old mermaid dug up and it will probably be a modern fake.’

  ‘Kent has left his statues in this yard and next time he comes to Capri he says he will bring them with him,’ continued Carla. ‘After that we went to the airport and I waved to his plane.’

  There was quite a pause and Althea wondered if Carla were carefully choosing her words.

  ‘After that,’ she said at length, ‘I went to a friend of Mamma’s. I had arranged to stay the night there, as it would be too late for me to return by steamer. And guess who came to dinner! Ermanno!’

  ‘Who is Ermanno?’

  ‘Althea!’ came Carla’s shocked tones. ‘You could not forget him. He was the most handsome young man out of all the wedding guests. He is a friend of one of my cousins.’ She trilled a few notes of a song. ‘I think he likes me very much.’

  ‘That’s nice. And you?’

  Carla’s face assumed a mischievous expression. ‘That I do not tell anyone—yet,’ she answered. ‘One must wait and see—as you say in your country.’

  During the next few days there were frequent references to Ermanno on Carla’s part. Her remarks began ‘Ermanno says ...’ or ‘Ermanno thinks ...’ and Althea wondered if this was the start of a budding romance. Perhaps it was only Carla’s opportunist way of ensuring that she had an admirer during the autumn and winter months when Kent would be absent. Ermanno lived in Naples so there would be little difficulty about frequent meetings.

  Althea hid a secret, if rather acid smile of appreciation of Carla’s sagacity in the matter of men friends.

  The singing lessons would begin again in the autumn, they had been suspended during the months of July and August, so Carla would have many opportunities of seeing this new young man.

  ‘I’ve forgotten to ask you,’ Althea mentioned one day, ‘but did you see Gregorio again, the man who persuaded you to sing in the restaurant?’

  Carla raised her eyes to heaven in a comic gesture. ‘He scolded me very much. He said I was wasting my voice, ruining my career and throwing away much money and success and a famous name all because my mother had a—what was the word?’

  ‘Prejudice, in English?’ prompted Althea.

  ‘That is it. Prejudice. He said that in years of the future I would be sorry when I was a nobody married to another nobody and found that girls with voices not so good as mine were famous and in the films or on television.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you can be famous another way,’ Althea consoled her.

  When Lawrence and Emilia returned from their stay in Rome Althea was kept busy helping her father with the new shop. Papers and documents had to be signed, Dr. Fortini accompanied Lawrence on visits to various authorities and the shop premises were finally purchased. During the time that the Bucklands had been in Anacapri, several of the new shops had opened, one for toys and souvenirs, the one next to Brian’s had become a flower shop.

  ‘But what will happen to them in the winter I’m not sure,’ was Lawrence’s comment. ‘When we do open, we’ll try to keep going all the year round. Even the natives must buy material sometimes.’

  Althea did not say the obvious, ‘But not your kind of expensive silks and tweeds.’ He knew enough of the snags himself.

  The village of Capri became decorated for the carnival and festa almost overnight. It would last for two whole days and the intervening night, so Carla told Althea. Bands from Naples as well as the local band of Anacapri who were formidabl
e rivals to Capri’s own local band. Processions and fireworks, free food at some of the cafes, everything imaginable. Carla was delighted at the prospect.

  ‘I suppose Kent is coming again this season,’ Lawrence asked Althea two days before the carnival.

  ‘Carla said so.’

  ‘Good. I want to ask him about a few details for the shop. Then I think we can get on with everything during the winter and open with a bang in the spring.’

  Opening with a bang was literally the initial part of the first day’s festa. Maroons and rockets shattered the early morning silence, church bells rang, taxis hooted quite unnecessarily.

  Althea was finishing her breakfast in the company of her father and Emilia when Carla entered the room. ‘Kent has arrived by the helicopter,’ she announced. ‘He has brought some friends with him to stay for a few days.’

  ‘Where are they going to sleep in his half-ruin house?’ demanded Emilia.

  ‘At the hotel opposite,’ Carla answered. Althea wondered where the girl had acquired all this information, but was too cautious to ask. Wait and she would be told.

  As soon as breakfast was over, Carla suggested that they should all go out into the garden to watch the steamer come in to Marina Grande from Naples.

  ‘Who is on board?’ teased Lawrence. ‘Your royal prince?’

  ‘The whole band of musicians from Naples and they play while they are on the ship,’ she replied.

  It was astonishingly true. From the far end of the garden the steamer could be seen entering the wide bay and faint sounds floated on the air and were borne upward to Anacapri. Bassoons and trumpets, drums and horns, a medley of notes, at this distance like fairy music on the air.

  Then Althea saw Kent coming towards her and the others. ‘I hope you don’t mind my coming in without ceremony,’ he said to Emilia, ‘but I’ve brought my friends to look at your superb view.’

  Althea wanted to turn and run, but the fact that he was accompanied by several girls and two men helped her to stand her ground.

  ‘Of course.’ Emilia gave him a charmingly gracious smile. ‘Come and walk wherever you choose. We have just seen the steamer come with the band,’ she told him.

  ‘We shall all hear enough of bands by the time this festa is over,’ he said with a touch of grimness.

  He nodded politely to Althea, introduced his friends, who seemed to be two married couples and one unattached girl. In the general conversation, Althea recovered her poise and was even able to smile and chat with the others.

  Kent spoke of the pieces of statuary he had purchased a short time ago. ‘They’re coming by steamer, so I must be there at the harbour when the cases arrive.’

  ‘I hear you’ve acquired a three-footed wolf,’ Althea said lightly. Her father must not suspect that all was not completely cordial between her and Kent. He would probably be here only for a few days at most and she could keep up the pretence.

  ‘The wolf is not so important as the boy. That’s a beautiful little head. He really is laughing.’ To anyone else Kent’s voice would have sounded completely conversational, but Althea’s ears detected the coolness he no doubt intended.

  ‘Are they really old, these pieces?’ she enquired.

  He shook his head and smiled. ‘No. Probably made in some secret workshop in the hills behind Naples, suitably aged, then displayed for sale. Still, I haven’t paid much for them, so I’m not grumbling.’

  Carla thrust her arm through Kent’s and swirled him around to talk to her, but in a moment or two she, too, was defeated, for Kent said he and his friends must go down to Capri for the first part of the festa.

  ‘See you all down there, I hope!’ he called as he followed the others. ‘Ciao!’

  Together Althea and Carla watched the party walk to the villa gates, the odd-girl-out by Kent’s side. She was small and dark-haired and looked up at Kent with an assured and possessive manner.

  ‘What was her name?’ demanded Carla when the others were out of earshot.

  ‘A Miss Holroyd, I think,’ answered Althea. ‘Jennifer was her first name. I think she is the sister of one of those other married girls.’

  ‘She is most dangerous,’ declared Carla, and the intensity of the girl’s voice made Althea laugh.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She means to get him for herself, I think.’

  Althea giggled. ‘Oh no, Carla. You see enemies in every girl who comes within a mile of Kent.’

  ‘Oh, indeed, I am not always selfish to think of myself. Sometimes I care about other people.’

  Before Althea could make much out of this ambiguous sentiment, Carla had skipped off towards the terrace and into the villa.

  It was not long before Lawrence and Emilia and the two girls were down in Capri watching first the religious procession, the saint carried high by perspiring men, followed by the priests in their gorgeous purple and gold robes. Then came tiny boys dressed in brief white shirts; they might easily have been animated cherubs from Della Robbia. Little girls in white dresses with blue veils followed, then the nuns, and after them the band from Naples, blowing as though they would split their instruments, drummers smiting their parchments as they would clout brigands.

  After a tour of the narrow streets clustered around the piazza, the procession wound down the curving road to Marina Grande. From the parapet in the square, it was possible to catch glimpses of groups as the road twisted. It was wholly impossible not to hear the band blaring and tootling and thumping away down the valley towards the sea.

  Now there was to be a longish interval for eating, recovery from exhaustion and the gathering of strength for the evening parade.

  Brian joined Althea and the others. ‘There was no point in keeping the studio open. Anacapri is deserted. Everyone is down here.’

  That was evident. It seemed also that most of the population of Naples and the surrounding countryside had come across the bay to take part in today’s festivities.

  When so many of the restaurants and cafes were full, Brian led the rest to a place he knew where there might be room. It turned out to be the one through the arch and in a courtyard where Kent had taken Althea the first time she had dined with him. There was room here for lunch, although the alcoves were occupied and many tables had been laid in the courtyard itself. Althea stifled a pang of regret that she had to visit this place again without Kent and when the situation between them was so different. But with Brian in the party it was not so difficult to assume a facade of light-hearted carnival gaiety.

  Althea, mindful of her father’s limited strength, suggested that they should all rest in the Augustus Gardens for the afternoon, but although there were places to sit in the shade, there was no respite from noise. A small band dressed in local costumes, the men in red and green waistcoats over brown breeches, the girls in long red skirts with embroidered white blouses and aprons, maintained a constant succession of folk tunes, mazurkas, snatches from opera. Drums, tambourines, guitars and accordions joined in with fervour.

  Emilia said mildly, ‘It is always like this for the festa. No peace anywhere, but I have a friend with a quiet house. Come, Lorenzo.’

  She led the way back through one of the narrow streets and her friends welcomed her warmly. There was a small enclosed garden at the back of the house and here the party were plied with iced drinks or coffee and tiny cakes, although it was still too soon to eat much after the protracted lunch.

  ‘Where do you intend to see the evening procession?’ asked Emilia’s friend.

  ‘In the piazza.’

  ‘You will be crushed like a sardine. Wait while I telephone.’

  After some delay, for it was quite possible, thought Althea, that the entire telephone staff were at the festa and off duty, the woman came back to say that her friends in the Piazza Umberto would be glad for Emilia and her husband and daughters and anyone else who wanted to be included, to watch the festa from the roof of her flat which overlooked the piazza.

  It was not easy to push
through the crowds that were now again filling the narrow streets, but once on the roof there was breathing space. A dozen or more other friends of the flat-occupier were scattered about the roof; a couple of tables and a few chairs made focal points for groups, and Althea and Brian chose to lean against the parapet to watch the seething mass of people below.

  ‘Isn’t that your friend Kent?’ Brian asked.

  She glanced across to the point he indicated, ‘Yes, that’s Kent,’ she answered casually.

  ‘I didn’t know he’d come back.’

  ‘He came this morning and brought some friends with him specially to see the festa.’ She wanted to move away from the parapet or at least turn her head, but she could not do so and some sixth sense must have caused Kent to look straight up in her direction.

  Brian waved and shouted, indicating that there was probably room up here on the roof for Kent and his friends. That was the last thing Althea wanted and she was relieved when Kent merely smiled and shook his head. It was then that she noticed the girl she had mentally designated as the odd-girl-out, the one called Jennifer. As Kent waved his hand in a salute, the girl waved hers, too, her left hand on which sparkled the unmistakable glints of diamonds. Her right hand was tucked inside Kent’s elbow.

  A feeling of physical nausea swept over Althea and she momentarily moved farther back from the parapet. Odd-girl-out indeed! How blind she had been to the fact that it was she, Althea, who was the real odd-girl-out! Oh, yes, she had been handy enough for Kent in his voluntary exile during the summer. What luck that besides an attractive Italian girl who was infatuated enough to respond to his lightest call, an English girl had come to the Villa Stefano! Althea blamed herself for not being more reserved, forgetting that when the heart calls the head does not always listen. Well, she was finally cured now. She would not be so simple-minded in future. She told herself that Kent Sanderby had taught her a valuable lesson. She could put that one-sided friendship into the past behind her.