That Summer in Ischia

by Penny Feeny

  By degrees Mimmo and his saviour were coaxed into the embrace of the assembled family. Fabrizio opened a bottle of French champagne and insisted Cristina drank a glass; the carabiniere, Enzo, too. The heroine of the occasion was invited to tell her story again, with more detail this time. Maresa translated for Liddy and she learned how Cristina had gone to feed the pigs and stumbled on this wild dirty creature wrapped in a piece of sacking. How she had fed and bathed him and found him something to wear but, like his parents, she’d not been able to get a morsel of information out of him. She had shown Enzo and his colleagues the hollow in the undergrowth where the boy had sheltered, but the force of the sirocco had brought down branches as well as leaves. There was no trail of clues to analyse.

  ‘Don’t they have any leads at all?’ asked Liddy.

  ‘Yes indeed!’ And Enzo explained through Maresa that thanks to the English signorina’s identification they were investigating the movements of some petty local thieves. The kidnap appeared to be a sign of the times – questi brutti tempi – a copycat crime, but the police didn’t believe they were dealing with hardened professionals. They’d decided this abduction was most likely opportunist, a poor, sloppy business; the note was obviously the work of an amateur. Their enquiries were continuing, naturally, but he was extremely satisfied with the outcome so far.

  Liddy, squirming at her alleged part in the process, was far from satisfied, but at this juncture the doctor arrived. While he examined Mimmo in a quiet bedroom with the shutters closed, Liddy sought out Fabrizio. The contrast between his previous black fury and his present euphoria was striking. His usually haughty face looked as if it could crack with good humour.

  She waylaid him as he lit a cigarette. ‘What does this mean for Helena?’ she asked.

  Fabrizio removed a speck of tobacco from his lip before answering in mild surprise. ‘Elena?’

  ‘Yes. What’s going to happen to her? Don’t you feel responsible for her? I mean, I know I do.’ This was bold. She wouldn’t have dared to sound so accusing if she’d still regarded him as her friend’s employer rather than an unreliable lover.

  ‘I am finding her a lawyer,’ he said. ‘The best in Naples.’

  ‘Aren’t you worried about her?’

  ‘Naturally I’m worried.’ He scratched his head as if deciding how much to tell her. ‘But she is an adult, is she not? She makes adult choices. And Mimmo is a child. We don’t know how much he has suffered and we have to make him well.’

  ‘At least he’s alive and safe,’ said Liddy. ‘Whereas Helena’s in trouble.’

  ‘And this is my doing?’

  ‘You could have stopped the police taking her in. They’d have listened to you.’

  ‘Some things,’ he said, ‘are out of my control. I am doing what’s within my scope and my son must be my priority. When you have children of your own you’ll understand.’

  ‘I suppose you didn’t really love her,’ muttered Liddy, thinking she had already lost his attention.

  ‘Love!’ The word in his mouth was as piercing as the splinter in Sara’s finger. ‘What is this to do with you?’

  ‘Don’t worry. She didn’t spill the beans. I worked it out.’

  He could be arrogant and over-bearing and she’d always been a little in awe of him, but no longer. There was vulnerability too, and she could begin to see what it was, besides his more obvious charms, that Helena had fallen for.

  ‘Love is a very splendid thing. But we should distinguish, should we not, as the Greeks did, between the different kinds of love? Between love and duty.’

  Sod the Greeks, thought Liddy. ‘And don’t you have a duty towards Helena who was under your roof?’

  ‘And didn’t she have a duty towards Mimmo? My wife and I, you know, we have discussed this many times and we cannot avoid the conclusion that Elena is responsible for her own – what do you say? – predicament.’

  All the while, Fabrizio’s fist had been clenched around his lighter. He rolled it around his palm and snapped at the wheel with his thumb. ‘I offered to stand bail for her,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately there is a problem with her papers.’

  Liddy swallowed, said nothing.

  ‘She will be freed. After all, she is British and her misdemeanour is stupid only. But when? Boh, I cannot say.’ And he stamped out his cigarette, flattening the remaining white column with his heel.

  Two days later Mimmo had still not spoken. The doctor reassured them that he was physically sound, but that he should not be pressed. When his nerves recovered, so would his speech. The waiting was hard for them all. After they had finished their lunch of chicken cac-ciatore – everybody talking at once to make up for Mimmo’s absolute silence – Maresa took Liddy aside. ‘I want to speak to you when we have settled the children for their nap.’

  When she was certain Bobo and Sara were sleeping she ushered Liddy into her bedroom. ‘Do you want coffee?’ she said as if it were a sudden afterthought. ‘Camomile? Something else?’

  ‘No. I’m fine.’ She sat on the white wicker chair because she found her legs were shaky.

  Maresa opened the shutters on to the balcony from which Helena’s passport had plunged. ‘We have been making careful consideration,’ she said.

  What was it about the words ‘careful consideration’ that sounded so ominous? Did they always have negative connotations? Was it ever possible for somebody to say: After careful consideration I believe you are absolutely the right person for me/this job/this course/this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? Instead of: I’m sorry, but . . .

  ‘Mi dispiace,’ said Maresa. ‘I know the children will miss you, but after what has happened, we believe, all of us, that it’s best if you leave. Truthfully we will not be able to let them out of our sight from now on. As you may imagine! And now we are in August, our husbands can take holidays so we have less need of your help. This isn’t what we arranged, but we must be philosophical, don’t you agree? We will not be unreasonable. We will give you time to pack, to prepare for departure. We will pay the money we owe you. You can go tomorrow, yes?’

  Stung into defiance, Liddy said, ‘I’ll leave tonight if you like.’

  ‘Are you sure? Where will you go?’

  ‘I’ll find somewhere.’

  ‘You know it is the high season. The hotels may be full.’

  ‘I can stay with my friend.’

  ‘Oh . . . yes.’ Maresa’s coal-bright eyes softened at the thought of Jake. She’d been beguiled by his knack of charming older women. In her opinion, it appeared he didn’t share responsibility for what had happened on the beach. Briskly she added, ‘Allora, that’s settled. Good.’

  They agreed it would be better if she left before the children woke, to avoid prolonged and distressing farewells. Liddy did wonder if this would look as though she was slinking away like a thief in the night, but she suddenly longed to be with Jake.

  Deposited outside the Vesuvio, she began to struggle with the weight of her suitcase up the stairs to his room. At the turn of the first flight she collided with someone descending and the case sprang open. As her clothes and shoes tumbled out in hectic disarray she burst into uncontrollable sobs.

  The young man, who’d been skidding down the narrow treads, was dismayed and agitated by her reaction and hurriedly stooped to pick up underwear and stuff items back into the case. ‘Don’t touch my things,’ wailed Liddy and while he may not have understood the words, he seemed relieved to snatch the excuse to move on. A door opened on the floor above and she heard Jake exclaim: ‘What the fuck?’

  She gathered armfuls of clothes – so carefully folded an hour ago – while he leaned over the banister, shaking his head in perplexity. Once she’d collected everything, she snapped the locks shut again and clambered up the fnal fight. ‘Please hold me,’ she said, swallowing tears.

  ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ She butted her head against his chest. ‘Hey, don’t take it out on me.’

  She longed for him to soothe her with
kisses, for his lips to press gently on her eyelids and wet lashes, but his manner was distracted and perfunctory. With reluctance he carted her luggage into his room and shut the door. She clung to his neck. ‘I will explain,’ she promised. ‘But please can we go to bed first?’ She wanted to feel him inside her, his thin sheet wrapped around the two of them like a cocoon. She wanted to keep him bound so tight he couldn’t steal away. She wanted him never to leave her.

  She threw herself on to the sagging mattress and pulled him down to join her. She fumbled with his button-fly.

  ‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘I’m not in the mood.’

  ‘But you’re always in the mood. You’re Mr Permanently Randy.’

  ‘Not tonight, Josephine.’

  His cock was limp and soft against her palm, unresponsive. She could smell whisky on his breath. Scarcely an inch of J&B remained in the bottle on the bedside table. ‘You’ve drunk all that this afternoon?’ she said, shocked.

  ‘I had some help.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Just Guido.’

  ‘Who’s Guido?’

  ‘My indispensable purveyor of ice.’

  Why did he have to talk in riddles all the time? Couldn’t he see how upset she was? Then she recalled the man on the stairs and his hasty exit, as if already late for work. She’d thought there was something familiar about him. The angle of his shoulder as he bent to pick up her clothes mirrored the way he’d hunched at the counter, turning the pages of his newspaper. ‘Oh, you mean the barman?’

  ‘Yeah . . .’ He reached over her for the bottle. ‘But if your need is greater than mine . . .’

  He was shirtless and, catching the sharp tang of testosterone, she longed to lick and groom him. ‘You know I hate the taste of whisky.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ He leaned back against the bolster, his flesh smooth and tanned, his profile even and regular as a Botticelli painting. She wriggled until her head lay in the crook of his arm. A long mirror set into the wardrobe opposite reflected the two of them: Jake detached, Liddy still hoping she could kindle his interest. A cobweb netted flies in the corner of the sloping ceiling, a small truck droned past outside. His eyes flickered to her suitcase. ‘Perhaps now you can tell me what all this is about.’

  ‘It’s awful. I’ve been sacked.’

  ‘Really? I thought everything was okay now they’d found him.’

  ‘They don’t trust me, do they? And they’re frantic because Mimmo can’t speak. If you ask something simple, like whether he’s hungry or thirsty, he might nod or shake his head but he doesn’t answer. They keep testing him, which makes things worse – he just opens his mouth like a goldfish.’

  ‘So they haven’t found out how he disappeared from the beach?’

  ‘No, they seem to have some suspects though.’ She gave up trying to snuggle against him; in any case the sheets were tangled and knotted and digging into her back. She sat up, cross-legged. ‘Some small-time crooks who panicked. They think they couldn’t get him off the island because of the sirocco so they dumped him. I expect they’ll find out the truth soon enough.’ She wasn’t sure she cared any more. Mimmo had been restored to his family, but the relationships in her own life were collapsing like cards. ‘The funny thing is,’ she added, ‘the person who brought him back was Cristina, Rosaria’s niece. You might have seen her at the villa. She helps out sometimes.’

  He poured the last dregs of whisky into his empty glass. ‘The one whose father ferries her in that rusty old saloon? Has to watch her into the house.’

  ‘Yes, he’s scary, isn’t he? It’s because he objects to her boyfriend, thinks he’s not good enough. What’s a burino?’

  ‘Burino? Oh it means like, country bumpkin.’

  ‘Well, that fits. Apparently he’s a semi-literate peasant with a tribe of younger siblings to provide for. No prospects and not much sense.’

  ‘That sounds harsh! According to whom? Rosaria?’

  ‘No. She let the side down herself. Marrying beneath her and then getting widowed. It was Maresa who filled me in. There aren’t any sons so Cristina can’t afford to waste her time with no-hopers. She needs to find a decent bloke who’ll keep the farm going.’

  ‘So the father’s after funds, is he? And is Cristina going to get a reward?’

  ‘She says she doesn’t want anything. She’s just God’s instrument so they should make a donation to the Church. I mean, they’re all over her of course . . .’

  ‘For now.’ He rested the glass on his diaphragm. ‘I wonder if the police will get to the bottom of it, they’re so bloody incompetent. At least it lets Helena off the hook.’

  ‘Oh Lord, you don’t know, do you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re holding her on drugs charges.’

  The drink spilled as he bolted upright. ‘For fuck’s sake!’

  ‘They found the stuff you put in her drawer.’

  ‘You’re saying it’s my fault?’

  ‘Well, if you left the dope there and she didn’t know . . .’

  ‘Oh, she knew all right.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because she thanked me for it. And we shared a couple of spliffs once or twice.’

  ‘Where was I?’

  ‘Probably on your high horse, claiming you didn’t hold with mind-altering substances.’

  ‘Well, they’re trouble, aren’t they? Look what’s happened. What are we going to do now?’

  ‘Do? What can we do?’

  This was not what she wanted to hear. She needed to rely on him. There wasn’t anyone else. ‘Well, for a start, I’ll have to find another job. D’you think there’s anything going at the Vesuvio?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Couldn’t you ask them if they wanted a singer, say?’

  He turned his head, squinting at her. ‘Do you sing?’

  ‘A bit.’ She attempted a few bars of ‘Killing Me Softly’, but her voice sounded weak and fragile and she let it trail away.

  ‘Don’t forget,’ he said, ‘this country’s the cradle of opera. Everybody sings all the time. What makes you special?’

  ‘Are you being unkind on purpose?’

  ‘That’s the shit performers have to put up with. You haven’t tried to earn a living yet, have you? It’s tough out there.’

  ‘It’s not a career move. I just want to make enough money to get by.’

  ‘Why? Why don’t you go home?’

  Bile rose in her throat, as if he’d punched her in the stomach. ‘Is that what you think? You don’t want me to stay?’

  He got up to locate his cigarettes. A whisky stain was seeping down the front of his jeans, the top buttons still unfastened from her failed attempt at arousal. ‘I thought it would be easier for you. Things don’t work out, you cut your losses.’

  ‘Is that what you’re going to do?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When you don’t get picked for a part. When you find you’re not going to make it as an actor, after all.’

  A whiff of sulphur as he struck a match. ‘I’m not planning on going back to England if that’s what you’re getting at.’

  ‘I thought,’ she said, ‘if I could get a job in a bar or as a tourist guide or something we could spend more time together. And I want to be here for Helena. It will get settled, this business. Fabrizio’s going to buy them off or whatever and it was the tiniest amount of hash, after all.’

  ‘Well, they’ll release her eventually,’ said Jake. ‘But you’ve no idea of the red tape involved.’

  ‘You mean she might miss some of next term? That’s awful.’

  ‘Is it? I wouldn’t know. I’m a dropout too.’

  ‘But it would look bad if I left now wouldn’t it? Like I was running away.’

  He despatched three perfect smoke rings. ‘This is one major balls up.’

  ‘So could I stay with you for a few days while I try to sort stuff out? I’ve got a bit of spending money left.’

  ‘H
ere, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, afraid not.’

  ‘No, I can’t stay with you?’

  He was pacing the room. She watched him meet the wall, turn and turn again. He stretched his arm above his head to touch the slope of the ceiling. ‘This is a goddam garret. It isn’t feasible for two people to sleep in it. Plus, I don’t get to bed till about four in the morning, as you know. What would you do with yourself?’

  ‘I’ll try and get a job with similar hours to yours.’

  ‘You’d be better trying to do the opposite.’

  ‘Don’t you want to spend any time with me? I thought . . . we were . . .’

  ‘What?’

  Lovers, she was going to say, but was that true any more? Had he ever felt as she did? Hadn’t she always been disposable? Suddenly she was struck by a new notion – one that was so obvious she couldn’t believe she’d overlooked it. ‘Oh my God, it was Helena you really wanted! All this time . . . All this time you’ve been hanging around with us you were just making do with me. Using me. I’ve been so naïve. I was the second choice, wasn’t I? A substitute.’

  She waited for a comforting denial – No, you goose, it’s not that at all. After a beat, Jake said, ‘My point is that living in a place as cramped as this would only be bearable if we kept different hours.’

  She said stiffly, ‘Will you at least let me leave my suitcase? I’ll move it out as soon as I’ve found a pensione.’ She could picture it already: a shabby room with a washbasin, a wardrobe and a narrow single bed; cheap, off-white tiles with a smattering of dark chips so the track of squashed ants would go unnoticed. The sort of room that made you feel like a poor relation in a Victorian novel, knowing that up on the hillside there was life with maid service, rich food and a private beach. She’d have to live off takeaway slabs of pizza and stodgy rice supplì and hang around the Vesuvio, tormented by Jake’s combination of cruelty and tenderness until she couldn’t stand it anymore.

  ‘Please don’t cry, Lid.’

  ‘Please don’t call me Lid.’

  Helena wasn’t expecting a visitor. There were three regulars: the lawyer, an aide from the British Consulate, and Fabrizio. Fabrizio couldn’t come often. She knew he was working behind the scenes on her behalf; and she knew that he was angry with her. She was angry too – with Enzo and Liddy particularly, even (shamingly) with Mimmo and Jake, but most of all with herself. She was immersed in a cloud of anger so scorching, so white-hot, she ought to be combustible. It intensified after her dreadful transfer from Ischia to the mainland: the pitching boat, the stifling heat, the stench of rotting fish carcasses, razor-clam shells, sardine heads – no wonder she was sick again. And it built to a climax when she realized there would be no brisk exit from this incarceration. Delays abounded. There was the process of proving her identity, of obtaining her birth certificate and a new passport. Then came the problem of tracking down the local prosecutor, who was on holiday, and the question of discovering precisely which officials might be persuaded to smooth her path. Helena wanted to yell from rooftops, but money and influence talked quietly, slowly.