That Summer in Ischia
Page 5
She halted, with one arm stuck in a sleeve. Jake drew the blouse around her shoulders, bunching the material tightly so she was cocooned and he could tug her closer. He kissed her eyebrows, her eyelids, the line of her cheekbones.
‘So tell me,’ she murmured, though reluctant to destroy the moment. ‘Explain.’
‘You’d better ask her. As you said, she’s your friend.’
Ambling down to the bar the following morning to buy ice creams for the children, keeping tight hold so they wouldn’t trip off the path or run under the wheels of a car, Helena said, ‘Where did you get to last night? I was looking for you everywhere.’
‘What?’ This was the wrong way round. ‘No, hang on a minute. I was looking for you.’
‘You can’t have tried very hard.’
‘Jake said you’d gone off with someone.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. Some bloke you were dancing with.’
Helena rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, that was awkward. He saved me from these creeps who were hassling me, but then he homed in on me himself. And he turned out to be a policeman. I don’t think I handled it very well. I only escaped by giving him the Verduccis’ number. I could have done with rescue actually.’
‘Did you get caught up in all that stuff going on outside?’
‘The stolen Suzuki? Yeah, I saw them take it.’ She grinned. ‘Mind you, so did Enzo and he didn’t realize what was going on either. He thought they were after me.’
‘Enzo?’
‘Jesus, I just told you! The carabiniere. Whatever you got up to has addled your brain.’
This was it, confession time. ‘Actually, I went to bed with Jake.’
‘Ow!’ Bobo had kicked a shower of gravel in an upward spurt, which struck Helena’s knee. After rubbing at it, she said, ‘Well, congratulations.’
‘Don’t be so sarky. I wouldn’t have done if I’d thought it would upset you.’
‘I’m not upset.’
‘You’re not ecstatic, are you? Why do I get the feeling there’s something odd going on? I mean, I thought we didn’t have any secrets. I told you all about Phil.’
‘Phil?’
‘The bloke I went out with term before last. The economist. And about Steve.’
‘Who’s Steve?’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Helena, don’t you read my letters? I read yours. Over and over. Especially when you first came out here. I was so envious of you! And I was so pleased when you fixed up this job. But you had some kind of thing with Jake in Rome, didn’t you? I don’t understand why you didn’t let on.’
Helena stopped in a swirl of grit. She let go of Mimmo, who’d been limping slowly because he still had a thick crepe bandage wrapped around his leg, and fastened her hands around Liddy’s hot pink cheeks. ‘He was the last person I expected to see on this island,’ she said. ‘And I’ve already told you we were part of the same crowd. So yes, we did hang out together for a while. But it’s hardly significant.’
Bobo began to complain and pull Liddy forward again. ‘Then he is one of your cast-offs,’ she said, jerking herself free. ‘Why couldn’t you have been straight with me and admitted it from the start? What else are you hiding?’
‘Nothing important.’
‘So there is something!’
‘Only that he blows hot and cold a bit. I think he has insecurity problems actually.’
‘Don’t we all?’
‘Yeah, sure.’
‘I don’t get it . . . what am I supposed to do now?’
‘If he’s a good lay,’ said Helena coolly, ‘you might as well enjoy it.’
Liddy shook off Bobo’s clutch and ignored his persistent wails. ‘What, do you think I’m like you? A thrill seeker? Pants down, fanny out for anyone. Well, I’m not.’
‘Nor am I.’
Helena’s glance was getting frostier by the minute. The space between them on this dusty road, on this muggy overcast day, doubled and iced over. ‘Have it your own way.’ Liddy resumed her march with Bobo and Sara. They arrived at the bar and ordered gelati in advance of the other two, who lagged behind because of Mimmo’s leg.
Liddy began to feel contrite. Sucking her lemonade through a straw, squinting through her glasses, she watched Helena and Mimmo’s slow progress. She forced herself to rise as they came closer. ‘Oh my God, I don’t know what got into me. I can’t believe I said that. I’m so sorry.’
Helena appeared to thaw. ‘We always agreed we’d never quarrel over a bloke.’
‘And we won’t. Look, I really didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable about this.’
‘Uncomfortable?’
‘Out on a limb or whatever. I mean, if you found someone yourself, if you were keen on that police guy –’
‘Well, I’m not. And if he happens to phone the house any time you’re there, you must tell him I’m not in. Have you got that?’
4
The terrace of Casa Colonnata could have been designed for parties. It ran the width of the house and projected like the prow of a ship out to sea. A long dining table and a bar trolley offering beer, wine, ice and aperitivi stood beneath the vine-covered columns that gave the villa its name; two barbecues, one for meat and one for fish, were awaiting a match. Rosaria, the cook for both households, had enlisted her niece, Cristina, to help with the preparations in the kitchen. They were absorbed in gutting and filleting, peeling and chopping.
Cristina was a voluptuous teenager with thick, unruly hair who looked far older than her years. She was in a truculent mood. She’d arrived in an old dun-coloured Fiat with a dent in its back wing, driven by her father. The tension between them was evident as soon as they got out of the car, when he had pushed his fist into the small of his daughter’s back as she shuffled grudgingly to her duties. In his other hand he bore aloft a plywood crate that emitted little cheeps of life. Liddy had found this disturbing – especially after hearing that Rosaria would deal with the slaughter: wringing the birds’ necks at the same time as keeping her niece under scrutiny and away from an unsuitable new boyfriend, a feckless labourer the family deemed unworthy. Bent over the onions, Cristina’s eyes streamed with tears. Rosaria’s apron was spotted with blood.
Depending on your state of mind the kitchen was either a cornucopia or a battleground: those tiny, whole birds plucked naked and rammed on to a skewer; gutted sardines spliced with bay leaves on pointed sticks of willow; glossy dark chicken livers piled in a sacrificial heap. Stirring their claws sluggishly in their box of ice, but doomed to be griddled alive, were several dozen langoustines. Liddy had never eaten a songbird or a langoustine, but she didn’t want to admit this to anyone else.
She had brought the children to the party early so that Maresa and her husband, Piero, could ready themselves without interruption. Unlike Gabi, Maresa soaked up the sun and her skin was a deep, oiled bronze. Even so, she would spend hours adding layers of make-up and choosing her outfit: ‘For a social occasion, is important to make an effort, no?’ Sara was wearing a smocked tartan dress, which Liddy thought fussy but which Maresa had insisted was charming; Bobo was in a fetching playsuit fastened with far too many buttons and therefore a nuisance. Under Liddy’s supervision both were tottering through the salone with bowls of crisps.
Jake was standing by the table with a beer in his hand. He had been helping to set up the drinks but wouldn’t be staying because he was due at the club. ‘Have you noticed,’ he said to Bobo, ‘that everything on the table is round?’
Bobo mounted one of the chairs for a better look. There were slices of beef tomatoes like cartwheels, discs of grilled zucchini and melanzane, overlapping circles of salami and mozzarella, globes of marinated onions and artichoke hearts, and plump, glistening olives.
‘Not quite true,’ said Liddy, pointing at some stalks of asparagus.
‘There’s always an exception,’ said Jake, as Bobo continued to study the feast. He appraised Liddy and noted approvingly, ‘You look great. Nice frock.’
‘Let me mix you a drink,’ he said. ‘Gin fizz? Whisky sour? Bellini? Negroni? What do you fancy?’
More bottles were lined up than required; Fabrizio was a lavish host.
‘You’re twisting my arm,’ laughed Liddy as he arched her backwards for a kiss. ‘Go on then. Gin and It would be nice.’ It was an hour off sunset; the time when the light was at its most entrancing, burnishing everything it touched so that the whole world seemed crystallized, exquisite.
‘With an olive?’
‘Just a slice of lemon, please.’ She took the glass from him, ice cubes clinking, savoured the dry vermouth on her tongue. Bobo ran off to the kitchen in search of more circles.
‘I could do with a fag,’ Jake said, digging his hand into his pockets and bringing out a lighter. ‘Shall we see if Helena has any?’
‘She went out with Fabrizio. They’re not back yet.’ They had gone to collect an order of fireworks. Fabrizio wanted to set off a display at midnight to augur well for the rest of the summer.
‘She might have left a pack in her room. Come on.’
Rosaria usually tidied the villa in the mornings, but since then Helena had discarded a bra on the floor, thrown nectarine kernels at her waste bin and extinguished a fag-end in the dregs of a tumbler of Punt e Mes. Liddy straightened the coverlet on the bed before sitting down and closing the novel that she’d left open, its spine cracking. Meanwhile, Jake opened the central drawer of the dressing table, where hairpins lodged in combs, hoop earrings latched on to silver chains and shoelaces snarled with belts. He dug out a notepad and pens, a book of matches, a roll of film, two halves of a thousand lire note and a couple of Tampax. He wrapped the film in the torn note and tied it with a shoelace like a gift. He scribbled Kilroy Was Here on the notepad.
‘That’s the sort of thing Helena would do.’
‘Exactly.’
‘But I’m not sure you should be going through her stuff.’
‘I can’t make any more mess than this and I’m only after a smoke, for Christ’s sake.’ He was opening other drawers now, rummaging through clothes and underwear. ‘Eureka!’
‘Good,’ said Liddy. ‘Let’s go.’
‘What’s the hurry?’ Jake crossed to the window, checked the road winding down the hillside. ‘No sign of them coming back yet.’ He put the pack of MS into his pocket and returned to the dressing table to close the drawer.
‘Are you going to steal them all?’
‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘It’s much easier to replace a full packet than one that’s been opened and raided. I thought you wanted me to be discreet.’
‘It’s a bit late for that.’
‘Okay then. I’ll give her something in exchange.’ From a different pocket he took a parcel of silver foil.
‘Is that what I think it is?’
He exposed the small black nugget of cannabis resin and held it out for her to sniff. ‘She told me she’d run out so I said I’d cut her in if I managed to score. Nipped over to Naples a couple of days ago and got lucky. She’ll be grateful.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Liddy doubtfully.
‘Of course! I brought it over specially to give to her tonight. Since she’s not back yet, it’ll be a nice surprise.’ He slipped it beneath the clothes, but the drawer jammed when he tried to shut it. ‘There’s something wedged at the top.’ With a sharp jolt he freed the blockage. A narrow box flipped up and over, spilling its contents: a finely wrought necklace of blue beads. ‘Ah. Lapis.’
‘How do you know?’
‘It’s written on the box.’ He grinned. ‘I wonder why she doesn’t like it.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Well, have you ever seen her wear it?’
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘It seems a shame, it’s a fine piece.’ He was reaching around her, his light stubble grazing her cheek. When they parted she found he had fastened the beads behind her neck. He stood back a pace in admiration. ‘Mmm. Looks really good against your dress.’
The mirror confirmed this. The dress was pretty but the necklace lifted it into something more stylish. She tilted her chin and beamed at her reflection. He kissed the corner of her mouth and was pulling her towards him again when someone pounded at the door.
Liddy froze, but the person wrestling with the handle was only Bobo. He launched himself at Jake with a welter of demands.
‘Basta!’ said Jake. ‘In English, now.’
‘I want . . .’ His face flooded with pleasure as he found the word. ‘Ma-jeec. I want majeec. Majeec, majeec.’
Jake obligingly discovered a cigarette behind the boy’s ear and allowed him to light it with matches lurking between his buttons. This took a while as his babyish finger and thumb struggled to grip the wax stalk of the matchstick. At last there came a burst of flame and Jake inhaled deeply. ‘D’you want to see another kind of trick?’ he offered, lifting Helena’s cartwheel hat from its hook and slapping it on to his head.
With the cigarette poised between two fingers of his right hand, he rested his left on his hip and sashayed from wardrobe to bed and back again. In perfect mimicry of Helena, he drawled: ‘Whenever I fucking see that fucking guy I want to slice his fucking balls off. Know what I mean, darling?’
Liddy and Bobo giggled.
‘And toast them,’ Jake continued. ‘Or pickle them. Simmer them in fucking vinegar till they shrivel up.’
In truth, Helena had said something very similar a week ago, when Rosaria had taken a call from the hapless policeman, Enzo. ‘Tell him ha sbagliato numero,’ she’d hissed. But now Liddy defended her. ‘Hey, that’s cruel. You’re talking about my best friend. She might be critical but she’s not vindictive.
Jake swept off the hat with a flourish. ‘You’re right. She’s too lazy. All mouth and bull, that girl.’
‘Ancora,’ begged Bobo.
‘Another time,’ Jake promised. He pointed at Liddy. ‘I could do her next if you like.’
‘Don’t you dare. Come on, we’re getting out of here.’ She linked her arm through his and tugged at Bobo’s warm sticky hand, chivvying them both back to the terrace.
The guests began to arrive before Fabrizio and Helena returned, overdue, with the fireworks. These were neighbours and fellow holiday-makers, other women who sought beauty therapy in the mornings and played cards all afternoon, other men, like Fabrizio and Piero, who cruised out to sea and fished with harpoons for octopus and giant squid. Darkness had fallen and strings of coloured lights swung on both sides of the terrace. A record spun on a turntable in the corner of the salone and the chords of a romantic lament drifted outside to be drowned by conversation.
‘Protect me from the wrath of my wife,’ Liddy heard Fabrizio say to Helena. ‘Take care of the barbecue.’
While the adults mingled and their children scampered between legs clad in tight-tailored trousers, Helena wielded a pair of tongs and rotated charred pieces of flesh over the coals with a dreamy expression on her face. She hadn’t changed for the party. She was wearing a stained denim skirt and her hair needed brushing: a couple of leaves were caught in its tangles.
‘She could damage someone with that instrument,’ said Jake. ‘It’s not a branding iron.’
‘You could offer to relieve her,’ Liddy said.
‘I would if I had the time, but I’ve got to be going now.’
�
��You haven’t had anything to eat yet.’
‘I’ll go and see if any of her skewers are ready, shall I?’
As he approached the barbecue, Helena whisked around, the metal jaws of the tongs glowing red in her hand, and a sardine fell into the flames. Jake touched her on the shoulder in a comradely gesture. Then he grabbed a chunk of bread and gave a jaunty wave of farewell.
Some minutes later Helena accepted an empty platter from Fabrizio and loaded it with silver sardines and langoustines the colour of coral. As she bore her bounty across the terrace, she noticed Liddy. There were other bodies between them: a woman with rampant black curls, a balding man whose paunch threatened the buttons on his shirt, the doctor who’d treated Mimmo. Liddy raised her glass cheerily but Helena blinked as if uncertain of what she was seeing. Then she plonked the fish in the centre of the dining table and stormed up.
‘Take it off.’
‘What?’
‘You know what I’m talking about. Take it off.’
‘No I don’t.’ Liddy was indignant. Helena had a smut of smoke on her jaw and a wild-eyed look, as if she were high on something other than alcohol. Liddy felt Bobo attach himself to her leg.
‘Go away, Bobo,’ snapped Helena. She took Liddy’s arm and steered her around the side of the villa where they would not be seen. The child started to follow but then ran off, drawn like the guests to the aroma of barbecued fish. They were clustering at the table, stripping the backbones from the sardines, ripping heads and legs from the langoustines.
‘What’s the matter? Why are you so pissed off? Is it because Fabrizio made you do the cooking? I feel bad about not helping but I didn’t want to stink of charcoal and I wouldn’t have been any good anyway. I think it’s because they’re whole bodies, heads and everything, and I find that difficult to contemplate to be honest.’
‘What makes you think you can go into my room and help yourself to my things?’
Liddy’s hand crept to her throat. ‘Oh Lord, I’d forgotten, Hel. I’m sorry.’
Helena’s voice soared in astonishment. ‘You went into my bedroom and ferreted about in my cupboards and put on my jewellery and now you say you’ve forgotten?’