That Summer in Ischia

by Penny Feeny

  ‘Didn’t Fabrizio . . . ?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Help you out at all?’

  Helena’s expressive mouth stretched into a sneer. ‘He helped me out of jail. He wasn’t so keen on the hospital visits, he’s a bit squeamish.’ She placed her hand over Simon’s, which had tightened on her shoulder. ‘My friend here is a criminologist. Now that he knows my dark secret, I daresay he can come up with a theory to account for such deviant behaviour.’

  How the hell am I supposed to know where it’s safe to tread? wondered Liddy. ‘Honestly,’ she said to Simon, ‘she’s exaggerating. Nothing deviant at all. It was more a question of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ When Helena didn’t elaborate she ploughed on: ‘Why didn’t you write to me? You never answered any of my letters. I hadn’t a clue what was going on or what happened after Naples. I didn’t know about Allie or anything. Was it all hushed up? Maybe it was my fault for not trying harder to find out, but I was scared of . . . I don’t know, making things worse? Scared and ashamed. I said I was sorry at the time, didn’t I, and I’ll say it again. I’m sorry for all that you went through and I’m sorry you wouldn’t let me share any of it. It must have been really tough.’ There, she hadn’t lost her nerve, she’d done it: a full and frank apology.

  ‘I won’t pretend,’ said Helena. ‘That it wasn’t incredibly stressful. The birth, Allie’s injury. Everything.’ She sighed. ‘And then trying to settle in England again and earn a living, that whole working mother conundrum. You must know how it is.’

  ‘No,’ said Liddy, pushing aside her untouched wineglass. ‘Actually I don’t. I . . . I haven’t got any children.’

  The central lamp hung low from the ceiling and cast a cone of light over the table. Simon moved away from its beam and said, ‘Coffee or cocoa?’

  Helena and Liddy’s eyes met. For a second they were fifteen again, squealing ‘cocoa’ in unison. Then they fell silent and shifted in their seats. He blundered around, opening cupboard doors, humming under his breath. Eventually he found a canister of drinking chocolate.

  Who would have imagined a couple of heaped spoonfuls of brown dust could have this effect? The hot liquid felt sludgy against Liddy’s teeth and tasted excessively sweet, but there was comfort in it too. She risked a smile. ‘Allie is lovely. You must be very proud of her.’

  ‘Thanks. Yes, I am.’

  Liddy swallowed. ‘When I mentioned the Baldinis’ landline . . . I mean, I already checked the number with international directory enquiries. It’s only the prefix that’s changed.’ She rescued the envelope she’d stuffed into her pocket – she hadn’t liked to take off her coat without an invitation – and passed it to Helena. ‘It might set your mind at rest if you could get hold of her.’

  Helena accepted the envelope, rose and left the room without speaking. Simon tapped his fingers ruminatively against his chin. Liddy sipped her cocoa. ‘Have you known her long?’ she asked, to break the awkward silence.

  ‘Well, now . . .’ He let out a breath. ‘Long enough to find her intriguing, shall we say. An impression you’ve certainly reinforced.’

  ‘I’m so sorry I interrupted your evening. Only it’s difficult to know what to do for the best when things happen at a distance and you’ve no ability to control them. Your imagination goes into overdrive, doesn’t it, picturing –’

  Simon’s eyes travelled over her shoulder and she turned to see Helena in the doorway, twisting the cord of Allie’s dressing gown. ‘Picturing what exactly?’

  Liddy marvelled that she used to regard her as a Boudicca-type, charging about, trampling over people – whereas, in fact, beneath that challenging exterior, she was as vulnerable as anybody else. ‘I don’t know. I mean, I hadn’t really . . . Weren’t you able to get through?’

  ‘No,’ said Helena. ‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone in. Any idea where we go from here?’

  20

  For the first time since leaving home, Allie woke alone. For once she wasn’t in a railway carriage or a backpackers’ dormitory; she was in a room with white-washed walls and terracotta tiles, floating amid clouds of feather pillows and quilt. Wrought-iron curlicues, like music notation, flourished at either end of the high double bedstead. Swathes of white muslin were suspended above her from a coronet, like a bridal veil or an unusually decorative mosquito net. Morning light was poking through the shutters, picking out the bright, jewelled colours of the rug and the cushions on the ottoman. The tranquillity of her surroundings was unbroken by any mechanical noise; there was only the whirr of doves’ wings and the soft throaty clucks of chickens.

  She’d been worried when she’d first hobbled into the spacious reception hall of Fattoria La Castagna that she wouldn’t be able to afford the rates. It was transparently the type of place where attention to detail and comfort were not skimped. After the warmth of their initial greeting, the owners, Enzo and Cristina, regarded her curiously as if they ran a refined and superior cattery and a mangy three-legged dog had turned up expecting a kennel. When she’d held out her passport Enzo hesitated before accepting and opening it. He then studied the pages for some time – so long, in fact, that she began to wonder if it had been defaced or tampered with.

  ‘Allegra Ash-a-bourne,’ he said in a heavy accent. She nodded. ‘You are born in Roma?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m a British citizen.’

  ‘In nineteen hundred and eighty?’

  She nodded again. Husband and wife exchanged glances. Cristina’s small features nestled in the shiny dough of her face. She pursed her lips and muttered what sounded like ‘Impossibile . . .’ Afterwards, Allie guessed they were debating which room to put her in, but at the time she feared they would refuse to take her. Her police escort had already left and she didn’t know where else she could go. Then Enzo picked up a pen and recorded her details with painstaking precision and Cristina beckoned her up the stairs.

  ‘Oh, it’s lovely!’ Allie had exclaimed when shown her magnifcent bed and gleaming bathroom. ‘But I don’t know if it’s too expensive for me. If you have another room that’s smaller and cheaper?’

  ‘We have not so many beds here,’ said Cristina. ‘This is not hotel. This is un agriturismo. Is different concept.’

  At that point Allie’s ankle gave way and she crashed on to a rustic elm chair. Cristina went in search of painkillers and there was no more discussion of cost.

  With the help of the painkillers she’d slept remarkably well, despite her throbbing ankle, but when she threw off the sheets in the morning she saw it had swollen and turned blue. So here she found herself: unable to walk properly, trapped in a place well over her budget, with no spare clothes and no phone, on the run from Max who – actually, she didn’t know for sure who he was . . . But she wouldn’t be disheartened. You couldn’t be for long in a spot as perfect as this. With her weight on her right foot she shuffled across the tiles and opened the shutters on to a canopy of fresh green vine leaves and the dark, enticing aroma of coffee.

  The dining room was converted from a former barn and had a high, arched ceiling and glass double doors opening on to a terrace studded with lemon trees in pots. An immense refectory table ran down the centre. At one end sat a frail elderly couple; two families, one German, one Italian, occupied the middle section. They all looked around as Allie entered and, apart from one of the children, looked discreetly away again. She was aware that she didn’t fit in: wrong nationality, wrong generation, unaccompanied, grimy (the dirt from the roadway embedded in her skirt and top had resisted superficial soaping). She sat at what she judged to be a civilized distance and smiled at the staring child, who was reprimanded by his father. A boy of about sixteen, the owners’ son she presumed, brought her a cappuccino. A basket of fruit and a basket of pastries were pushed in her direction. The other breakfasts were all further advanced; one by one the guests crumpled napkins on to their plates and pushed aside glasses smeared with the residue of freshly squeezed oranges. Allie accepted the offer of a
second coffee and waited for everyone else to leave. She didn’t want to be watched limping out of the room.

  She didn’t expect, once she’d negotiated the corridor and reached the lobby of the farmhouse, to be tripped up by her own backpack. It was sloping against a carved oak chest and one of the straps flopped on the floor, as hazardous as any banana skin. Sprawling beside it, she recognized the dark stain at the bottom where her shampoo bottle had leaked, the frayed drawstring and scratched buckles. For a piece of luggage that had never left the continent of Europe it looked distinctly well-travelled.

  The entrance hall was deserted, but through the open doorway she spotted the rear-end of a much-mocked Fiat Punto receding from sight. She couldn’t chase after it; she’d never catch up. She felt a faint thud of disappointment that the person who’d delivered her possessions hadn’t stayed to hear her thanks. Wincing, she gripped the chest for support, pulled herself upright and contemplated the difficulty of hoisting the bag to her room.

  A shadow blocked the passage of the sun. Max was striding over the threshold in cut-off Levis and a black T-shirt, jingling his car keys. He looked exactly the same as he had done twenty-four hours ago. But then he was the same. It wasn’t Max who had changed, but Allie’s perception of him.

  ‘I had to park out back,’ he said. ‘Can’t upset the chicks.’

  She cleared her throat with a self-conscious cough. ‘Thanks for bringing my things over . . . How did you know where I was?’

  ‘Well . . .’ He slipped the keys into his pocket and leaned against the newel post at the foot of the staircase. A long woven runner, in vivid blues and greens, separated them like a swiftly flowing stream. ‘How about we start with you? And what happened?’

  ‘He – he came out of nowhere.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The guy who mugged me.’

  ‘Yeah, they said you’d been attacked, but I don’t get it. One minute you were with us, the next –’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Pouf! Vanished.’

  ‘I don’t know myself. I expect I fell behind because I was talking. You know how it is when you’re on the phone. You hang back. I never saw him coming.’

  ‘You didn’t even call out.’

  ‘Yes, I did. And I blew my whistle.’

  ‘Your whistle?’

  ‘You can’t have heard it or you’d have come. I got the police instead and they were ages questioning me and then they brought me here.’

  ‘Okay, so here’s the part I don’t follow. When they’d finished with you, why didn’t you come on back to the villa?’

  What was one more lie on top of all the rest? ‘I didn’t think you’d be there yet. I didn’t think I’d be able to get indoors and I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep.’ She paused, adding with emphasis, ‘On my own. And that’s what’s been good here. It’s so peaceful.’ He was shaking his head so she raised her sprained foot. ‘It’s a bummer not being able to get in touch with anyone because I’ve lost all my contact numbers, but this is the thing that’s bugging me right now.’

  Max crossed the strip of aquamarine carpet and peered down at her ankle. ‘You should get that fixed up,’ he said. ‘Have you asked Cristina for a bandage?’

  He spoke the name with a casual intimacy that surprised her. ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘Her aunt Rosaria used to work for us when we came for vacation and she helped out from time to time.’ He glanced around the hallway. ‘I remember their wedding party here a couple of years before we left for the States. Enzo and Cristina had been courting for ages.’

  ‘Oh, right. Well, no, I haven’t asked for anything apart from painkillers. I think they only took me in as a favour. I was going to check out this morning.’

  ‘And head where?’

  ‘Once I get back to Naples I can go anyplace I like. The railway network’s my oyster.’ She thrust forward her chin to accentuate her bullishness. ‘I can rest up in train carriages for a whole week if I want to.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘So you were planning to run out on us?’

  ‘Of course not! I’d have to collect my stuff, wouldn’t I? I’m really grateful to you for bringing it over.’ She hoped she didn’t sound insincere. ‘I don’t suppose you could carry it upstairs for me as well? Only I’d feel like a hundred per cent better if I could brush my teeth and change my clothes.’

  ‘Sure.’ He shouldered it in a light, supple gesture and followed her halting progress up to her room. He poked fun at the bed and enmeshed himself like a ghost in the muslin drapery. Allie locked herself in the bathroom. Sitting on the bidet she scrubbed her armpits and her teeth. She tugged on her crinkle-effect, no-need-to-iron sundress and tied back her hair. When she emerged Max had taken off his sandals and was lying in the middle of the bed, his curls a dark contrast to the frothy pillows. She sat on the ottoman.

  ‘Here we go,’ he said. ‘I’m waiting for chapter two.’

  ‘There’s nothing to say really.’ She picked at a loose thread on her dress. ‘I didn’t tell the police I’d been staying up at the villa because it wasn’t any of their business. There was no point in dragging you and Bobby into this. I mean, you’d already been so good to me. Plus I needed . . . I needed some space.’

  ‘Right . . .’ said Max, clasping his hands behind his neck, drawing up one knee so that she was looking directly at the scar on his shin. Her brother’s scar. Her brother: that was so weird. She’d grown up in shared houses, with a rota of lodgers and a tide of children ebbing and flowing, and as the only girl in the band she was used to fraternizing with men, but the idea of a constant presence, a sibling who shared your DNA – that was something else. Yesterday she’d been overwhelmed because obviously she shouldn’t be fancying him, but now that initial reaction had passed. She was entering a new phase.

  ‘So,’ he continued. ‘You figure that because a person’s only spent, what, a couple of days with you, sharing your pool and your music and your drink and your dinner they owe you nothing. Not a cent?’

  ‘I paid for the meal in the trattoria,’ insisted Allie. ‘Bobby tried to stop me but I made him take the money.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the cash. I meant an explanation. I’m trying to say you don’t just crash into some guy’s life and then vanish like you’re an alien from outer space. We were concerned, Allegra. Have you got that?’

  ‘Gosh!’ The vigour of his speech startled her. ‘You were really worried about me? What did you do?’

  ‘Do?’ He looked sheepish. Allie’s fantasy of a search party rampaging the streets by torchlight with vigilante coshes evaporated. ‘We called the cops this morning.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? Because you hadn’t come back. Because we hadn’t heard from you. So, okay, maybe you’re the type of girl who gets a better offer in between a restaurant and a club, but how would I know that? And because Bobby took a call from England.’

  ‘Who was it?’ asked Allie, though she knew it had to be Liddy. It couldn’t possibly be anyone else.

  ‘Whoever you were calling last night, I guess, whoever knew where you were staying. Anyhow, she raised the alarm so we contacted the cops. Soon as we said we wanted to report a missing Brit they told us you were here.’

  A frisson of horror trickled along Allie’s spine. ‘You were going to report me missing? Oh, that’s heavy. You thought I’d been snatched or murdered or something?’

  ‘It happens,’ said Max in a non-committal tone. ‘It happened to me as a matter of fact.’

  ‘What?’ Her heart thumped against her ribs. Was she now going to hear the whole story? ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When I was around three, here on vacation, I went missing, believed abducted.’

  ‘No! Really?’

  ‘In the seventies it wasn’t so unusual. This country had a whole spate of kidnappings. Sometimes for money, sometimes for ideology. Gli anni di piombo. Did you ever hear of the Lead Years? It was a terrible period. There was a weak centre-right leadership and left-wing terr
orist cells operating everywhere. The Getty kid was the most famous ransom bid. Bandits cut off his ear. Aldo Moro was the most atrocious political one – the Red Brigades assassinated him. And the islands made impenetrable hideouts, Sardinia and Sicily especially.’

  ‘But why you? Was your dad really loaded?’

  ‘Getty-style? No way.’

  ‘Then why?’

  He hopped off the bed and came over to her. He propped his arm against the window frame and rested his forehead on it, looking out. The sun had moved around the corner of the farmhouse but Allie could feel its benevolent warmth on her neck. The German family piled into their car in the courtyard and drove away through the cypresses. A bird of prey with a vast wingspan was poised in the sky as if it had been painted: a menacing blot on a bright blue canvas. Eagles nested on the craggy limestone peaks, she’d read. She imagined bandits hustling their blindfolded victims into the cold dark caves below.

  ‘There she is!’ he exclaimed, distracted by the sight of Cristina carrying a basket of eggs. He called out to her in Italian. She raised her head and nodded. ‘I’ve asked her to bring you a crepe bandage,’ he said. ‘It should ease the discomfort. I’m surprised she hasn’t offered you a poultice or whatever. These country types, you know, they have remedies for any condition you can name and quite a few you can’t.’

  ‘I don’t think she likes me very much.’

  ‘Why d’you say that?’

  ‘Oh, you know. Like I’m not her class of guest. She did look at me a bit like I was something the cat brought in.’

  ‘You’re reading her wrong,’ said Max with conviction. ‘Okay, she’s done well for herself, but that doesn’t make her a snob . . . Still, I could be biased.’ Leaning against the wall, his knees slightly bent, he tapped out a rhythm with both hands. Allie thought again how it might be to play together – it was what so many siblings did, fitting into a common groove, automatically in tune. After a few moments he said, ‘She was the one who found me.’