The Italian Affair (24 page)

“Well I think we should go,” Dan said. “We should start trusting people a bit more and just enjoy what Naples has to offer for as long as we are here for.”

Capri
– 1-5pm 2nd October 1986

As they sailed through the Faraglioni Rocks, just off the island of Capri, murders and random gun shots aside Issy looked into the full glare of the sun and thought “life doesn’t get much better than this.”

Giuseppe owned an embarrassingly opulent looking speed boat which they’d embarked from a small marina near Naples just before lunch. Both he and his girlfriend had both welcomed their English guests on-board like long lost friends. And almost as soon as their feet left dry land Giuseppe had put his throttle on full to impress them and taken them far out to sea in the direction of Capri.

As they got nearer to the island they’d dropped anchor and settled down for a long and leisurely lunch watching beautiful people diving into the sea and taking the sun from similarly opulent looking boats bobbing about on the water.

Their lunch which had all seemed pre-prepared consisted of Tricolore (buffalo mozzarella, blood red tomatoes and large aromatic basil leaves), hams and salamis and roughly cut pieces of parmesan accompanied by spongy white bread washed down with bottles of local red and white wine.

“Allora,” Giuseppe said “after the Tricolore we now have the lasagne of my beuatiful mama. She cook it this morning” he added beaming from ear to ear with pride.

“Giuseppe looked at least forty so why his mama was cooking him a lasagne first thing in the morning was anyone’s guess” Issy thought as she looked over at him and simply muttered. “That’s nice Giuseppe to have a mother who’ll do that for you.”

But after Issy had said those words he’d looked totally unashamed at still being looked after by his mother in his forties and simply disappeared below deck re-emerging with a huge tin dish of lasagne which was still warm. Placing it in front of them, the cheese sauce bubbled on top as Giuseppe carefully served it into four equal portions and placed a large bowl of fresh salad leaves in the middle of the table.

Still smiling like the cat with the cream, Giuseppe suddenly announced. “La mia mama’s lasagne is
THE
best lasagne in Napoli!” whilst grinding his knuckles into the small of his cheek to make the point – in much the same way Pasquale had done in her apartment on the first day she arrived.

But Francesca, despite her passiveness up until this point seemed riled by the fact he was suggesting his mother cooked the best lasagne in Naples and decided to say so.

“Non. This is not true Giuseppe,” she whined with what sounded like a blocked nose. “La mia mama has
THE
best lasagne.”

Dan looked at Issy and they stifled a giggle. A boyfriend and girlfriend locked into an argument about the culinary skills of their mothers seemed absurd. And the longer it went on, the WEIRDER it became as they were actually being serious.

“Non. Francesca,” Giuseppe said. “This eez not true. You know la mia mama’s lasagne is beautiful. La tua mama puts in too much the oil in for me. My mama does the lasagne perfetto.”

At which point, Francesa decided to up the tempo of the argument by taking one of the large reclining cushions from the deck of the boat and beating Giuseppe around the head with it.

“Ok,” said Dan trying to be intervene mainly because he wanted to eat some of it. “Please don’t get so upset about a dish of pasta. This one is perfect and I’m sure your mother’s lasagne is perfect Francesca also. The English do not really care about the perfectness of food, so we’ll just start eating it if you don’t mind.” And that one small comment was all it took to split up the fracas about lasagne – and the conversation immediately moved on in a familiar way.

“Allora,” Giuseppe said to Issy and Dan “the life in Napoli eez beautiful non? We have the sun, the sea, the food, the beautiful woman, the lasagne of mia mama….non?” (Francesca kicked him at that point and it looked like they might fight again but thankfully they just howled with laughter). “Odd,” Issy thought “how simplistic their sense of humour was.”

Directing her first question to Issy Francesca asked.” You like Napoli better than England?”

“Er, that’s a difficult one,” Issy said playing for time. “It is better than England because of the weather and the sea, the sun, the food and the coffee…..but.....”

“Ma,” shouted Giuseppe over her as he finished eating and lit a fat cigar. “You forget the most important thing. We are also better for the football?” (this comment was followed by huge gales of laughter).

“Ah, well you certainly have us there Giuseppe,” Dan said. “I don’t particularly like football or know too much about it but even I can safely say you’re better at it than we are.”

“Si Dan, but all is better in Napoli non?” Giuseppe replied more seriously. “Look my beautiful city and Capri and my boat and my beautiful woman.”

“Um,” Issy interjected trying to finish the sentence that he had interrupted. “I agree with you that a lot of things are more beautiful. But not everything is, I mean what about the murder of that innocent journalist reporting about the Camorra or the way the Mafia put random gunshots through shop windows like poor old Pasquale’s whose crime was presumably only that he had not paid money to money exhorters.”

And then even though the sun was at its highest point in the sky and burnt down with an intense orange yellow, the mood on the boat shifted as soon as Issy had finished her final sentence. Giuseppe started to turn puce, and Francesca looked plain horrified. Her world of sequinned bikini’s and speed boats shattered by the impertinent need of Issy Mead, a guest on their boat, to speak the truth.

Even Dan looked embarrassed that Issy should have just come out with that kind of sentence at a moment when all they were doing was LIVING THE DREAM.

Dan kicked Issy in the shins and flashed her a pained look before looking up at Giuseppe to see how he was taking this particular bit of bluntness.

And then somehow, despite his very evident anger, Giuseppe calmed himself down enough to speak. “Issy,” Giuseppe said finally with a cold brutal steeliness in his eyes. “You know that Napoli has the problems but my city and my people and my life is
beautiful
.”

And that was the end of the difficult conversation. No-one dared say another word on the subject. Not even Issy. Francesca dealt with the awkwardness by putting her arms around Giuseppe and caressing his hairy back. She gave him a glass of wine and whispered in his ear. He loved the attention and revved the engine just that bit more to show his appreciation.

As Issy looked at them she noticed that Francesca had a way of seduction which, miraculously for all of them, turned Giuseppe from a murderous looking villain into an attentive lover charmed by the beauty of a woman who knows how best to please him.

As the atmosphere returned to how it had been before Issy’s outburst they rearranged themselves towards the back of the boat, where they could lay in the sun after lunch. Dan took out his watercolours and Francesca sat in a cross legged position with an odd reflective mirror in the shape of an open book held up to her face to bronze her already slightly orange looking skin.

Anxious to only speak about light inconsequential things Dan started to act in an overly camp way which he did when he was nervous.

“Francesca, what is the book thing you’re holding to your face?” he said airily as if he really cared.

“It is for sun.” said Francesca whose sentences were as brief as her pants especially whilst sun bathing. Nothing but nothing would detract her from her quest of turning the shade of a Sicilian orange.

Issy looked down at her misshapen bikini she’d bought from Miss Selfridges before she’d left Oxford and grimaced. It was a cheap black and white affair with sun tan lotion marks in the wrong places and didn’t quite fit. She’d been mortified when she’d dived off the boat with Dan before lunch to find the sea had lifted the top of it up and pulled the bottoms down. Francesca and Giuseppe had both laughed as she’d struggled to re-adjust herself whilst also trying to stay afloat. Normally she wouldn’t have cared but she was with a pupil so tried to claw back some of her dignity.

It was only when Issy was finally sure that she’d got all her bits back into her bikini top that she’d got back on-board the boat only to find Francesca standing in front of her holding up an expensive and tiny sequinned green bikini that she expected Issy to change into.

“Issy. This is better for you non?” said Francesca tutting at her old bikini.

“It is really kind Francesca,” Issy replied. “But I think I’ll stick with what I’ve got,” whilst thinking “I wouldn’t wear that thing EVER in a bloody million years.”

As the sun beat down on them after lunch and the activity on the other boats around them subsided they remained prostrate at the back of the boat. Sleepiness brought on by Giuseppe’s mother’s wonderful lasagne, the wine and THAT argument overcame all of them and one by one they snoozed off under a large stripy umbrella. At some point in the proceedings, Giuseppe and Francesca stirred and disappeared downstairs to continue their siesta in the shade.

When they had gone Dan made his feelings very plain. “Issy,” he hissed when he was sure they couldn’t be heard “you shouldn’t have mentioned the Via Maria Magdala affair. I don’t feel safe on this boat anymore. Giuseppe looked as if he was about to lynch you. Why did you have to go and spoil everything? We said we were coming here to enjoy life again not rake things up from the past.”

“Don’t worry Dan. He’s always like that because he loves his city and can’t stand anyone saying anything bad about it. In retrospect I probably shouldn’t have said what I did. But we’re here now and I said it so I can’t unsay it. And anyway we can’t exactly get off until they let us” she smiled.

“What happens if he just decides to push us over board,” replied Dan dramatically starting to believe that they may never see a shoreline again in their lives.

“I’m joking Dan. Don’t stress about it. He’s one of my students, which probably means I can get away with saying what I said. Look I need some water to cool down. It’s so hot up here now I can hardly breathe. Giuseppe said to help ourselves from the fridge downstairs so I’ll just pop below and get something cold to drink. Wait here”.

Dan reclined back under the umbrella and waited while Issy made her way below deck. She opened what she hoped was a fridge door but instead found her worst nightmare. After a few minutes of frantic searching she scrambled back up the stairs looking as if her whole world had just been blown apart.

“What the hell has happened now Issy? You look absolutely terrified,” Dan whispered when he saw the colour of her face and the look of blind terror in her eyes.

“I was looking for water,” replied Issy trembling. “But rather than opening the door to what I assumed was the fridge I opened a small drawer and found a gun in it with lots of pieces of white paper in a small pile next to it that all said in Italian “The next time you will be dead” with the word dead underlined.....AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN” said Issy.

“What the hell do you mean you saw a gun and white pieces of paper in a drawer?” replied Dan. “I can’t believe that downstairs there is a gun and a pile of assassination threats as evidence that it is not just on board as a means of self-defence. Are you sure about what you saw?”

“Yes I am,” Issy said. “I am one hundred per cent certain of what I saw. Giuseppe had a gun and a pile of small pieces of paper in a drawer down stairs with the same words written across them in the same handwriting as that small piece of paper we saw stuck on the front of Pasquale’s pant shop window?”

Dan sat up and put his head in his hands and swayed from side to side trying desperately to piece this new information together. Eventually he looked up and said. “Ok what do we do now? I mean when are we going to be free from this on-going nightmare? I told you he looked murderous. Why did he invite us on this boat and why is he carrying a gun – do you think the two are connected and that he wants to kill us and taking us out on his boat is just a ploy?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Issy said sounding stronger than Dan. “All we can do now is be nice and hope to God he lets us off this boat alive the only positive is that there are too many people around to shoot us so if he starts to sail further out to sea we may have to have a re-think.”

Dan ran his hands through his hair. “The only other strategy is to jump overboard right here,” he said. “But that might work for you but I’d most certainly drown so I’d only jump if I definitely knew I’d be a goner anyway if I didn’t.”

“Ok,” Issy replied. “Well that’s decided it. We’ll have to sit here and wait it out. Once they get up we’ll just have to ask them politely if they can take us home. We’ll have to make some excuse like we’ve come down with food-poisoning from the lasagne. It’s the only thing I can think we can do in the circumstances.”

“I don’t necessarily agree with that. If we criticise his mother’s pasta we’re dead anyway and we’ll miss the opera to boot,” Dan said slightly piqued at the fact the day had become so complex.

“I agree about not criticising the lasagne. But, we may as well already be at the opera, there is more drama on this boat than there probably will be at the San Carlo tonight” Issy said drily as they waited above deck for Giuseppe and Francesca to stir from their afternoon slumber.