Island of Mermaids

by Iris Danbury

  At the end of the hour the class was dismissed and as Althea accompanied Carla downstairs, she said, ‘Carla, you didn’t tell me it was a master class you were to attend. I thought it was entirely private lessons.’

  ‘That is later on,’ Carla replied. ‘First, we must join the class, so that Professor Scarpelli can really know our voices and what we can do. Then in perhaps six weeks he will give us lessons in private.’

  ‘Then there’s simply no need for me to come with you every time. I don’t mind an occasional trip, of course, but that’s all that’s necessary, surely, unless your mother thinks you might be kidnapped getting off the boat.’

  Carla laughed delightedly. ‘I think I would like to be kidnapped, but only by a handsome, wealthy man. He must be young, too. Do you think you can arrange it?’

  ‘I don’t know any men who would fit your requirements,’ returned Althea.

  Carla declared that she was ravenously hungry, as always when she had been forced to deny herself food for the sake of her singing. ‘Let’s go to lunch somewhere pleasant. I know several places.’

  A leisurely lunch, a stroll in a nearby garden, then a rest until the shops reopened, Althea enjoyed the afternoon, free from the nagging attentions of Cristo, but on the homeward steamer, Carla looked directly at Althea’s face and said, ‘You are very hard and cruel to my poor cousin Cristo. Why don’t you like him?’

  ‘He may be a very likeable young man and he belongs to your family, but I don’t like him to pester me.’

  ‘You mean it is Cristo who must not pester you? But you would not mind if some other man pestered you?’

  Althea laughed. ‘If I didn’t mind, then I wouldn’t call it pestering, would I?’

  Carla’s eyes and mouth assumed that sly expression that Althea had now come to know well. ‘Perhaps you would not mind Kent?’

  Althea shook her head slightly, but almost immediately realised that this gave an ambiguous answer. ‘No, I don’t think I’m attracted enough to Kent to bother one way or the other.’

  ‘That is good,’ replied Carla briskly, ‘for, you see, you would have no chance there. Kent has become so devoted to me. There is no room for another woman.’

  Althea did not immediately reply, but after a few moments she turned towards Carla. ‘That reminds me. Why did you call on Kent last night?’

  ‘Why not? He invited me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course!’ declared Carla with emphatic indignation. ‘Are you jealous that he did not also invite you?’

  ‘That’s hardly the point.’ Althea brushed the jibe aside. ‘But you know how much your mother dislikes you going to Kent’s villa.’

  ‘She would not find out—unless you told her.’

  ‘So it was a secret visit and that’s why Kent brought you back after such a short time.’

  ‘If you hadn’t been pretending to love Cristo and letting him make love to you, you would not have known about it.’ Carla’s face was mulish.

  ‘I came to look for you and Cristo followed me. Next time I shall keep out of the way and then your mamma will be very displeased with you.’

  ‘No, Althea,’ pleaded Carla with a sudden change of mood. ‘Sometimes I might need your help.’

  ‘In bolstering up your secret calls on Kent? It seems to me absolutely ludicrous that I’m expected to chaperone you in a singing class of nearly twenty people in Naples and yet you creep off in the dark to visit a man alone in his villa.’

  Carla began to giggle. ‘You are now angry with me. Poor Cristo! Poor Carla! We cannot do anything right. That means you are jealous of my friendship with Kent.’

  Althea sighed. What use to argue with this infatuated girl? ‘Let’s talk of something else. We’re both empty-headed if all we can find to discuss is a couple of men.’

  Carla was uncertain how to take this speech of Althea’s. She tried a new tack. ‘You have a young man at home in England?’

  ‘Oh, I know several.’

  ‘And there is one you wish to marry?’

  Althea laughed. ‘No. Perhaps no one wishes to marry me.’ Carla frowned and grimaced. ‘Oh no, that cannot be so. You are quite pretty.’

  ‘Thank you. But men usually want more than a pretty face.’

  Carla was still studying Althea’s features. ‘You are very English and your skin is good. Here there is so much sun that our skins grow coarse and then wrinkled. What colour are your eyes? Green or brown?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can see them only in a mirror and the colour sometimes depends on what I wear.’

  ‘Now they look very green with the reflection from the sea. As green as our Green Grotto. You must go there.’

  ‘I haven’t been to the Blue Grotto yet,’ said Althea. ‘I’m told we must go soon before the tourists come.’

  ‘It is nice to have tourists in the summer,’ remarked Carla, ‘but they see nothing of Capri. Just the Blue Grotto, Marina Grande and perhaps the piazza.’

  ‘Well, many of them are only here for the day and can’t see everything.’

  Althea was relieved that Carla had recovered her good humour. She could not really keep pace with Carla’s sudden changes of mood, but as long as the flare-ups were short in duration, Althea was more than willing to co-operate in a return to amicable relations.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The present harmony was, however, destined to be brief. On the following day while Althea and her father sat in the Villa Stefano garden in the late afternoon, one of the gardeners handed Mr. Buckland a note.

  ‘It’s from Kent,’ he told Althea. ‘He invites us to go with him to the Blue Grotto tomorrow morning if the weather’s fine. He says it’s best not to leave it much later. What do you say?’

  ‘Let’s go by all means,’ she agreed.

  She scribbled a few words of acceptance on her own and her father’s behalf and gave the message to the waiting gardener.

  Signora Marchetti and Carla had gone out to dine with friends on the other side of the island, so the two Bucklands were alone.

  ‘I suppose Kent’s invited Carla as well for tomorrow at the Grotto?’ hazarded Althea.

  ‘Probably,’ her father returned. ‘Although it’s more than likely that Carla has been there a few times and wouldn’t find anything very novel in the trip.’

  All the same Althea thought it would be a wise precaution to mention the excursion to Carla, but the Marchettis stayed late with their friends and next morning when the hired car that Kent had promised waited at the gates to take Althea and her father down to Marina Grande, there was no opportunity to see Carla or her mother.

  Kent was waiting at the landing stage with a small motorboat. ‘I thought we’d be able to circle the whole island by motor-boat,’ he said, ‘although we have to take a rowboat inside the Grotto. There are always plenty of those waiting for customers just off the shore.’

  A short distance from the harbour, Kent pointed out the Scala Fenicia, the old Phoenician steps, leading up to Anacapri.

  ‘Before the road came, this was the only way up from the Marina to Anacapri,’ he said. ‘Seven hundred and seventy-seven steps, so I believe, and your baggage loaded on to a donkey.’

  The lad in charge of the motor-boat grinned and pointed up the hillside, making a zigzag gesture with his hands.

  ‘Is it still possible to climb the steps now?’ Althea asked.

  ‘Possible, but not very sensible,’ was Kent’s opinion. ‘Certainly not alone. So few people use the path now that if you were hurt, you’d lie there shouting for help until you were blue in the face.’

  A small frown crossed Althea’s face. Why must he so often refer to that single occasion when she had tripped over a boulder in his garden?

  But now there were other interesting points to see. The tiny beach called the Baths of Tiberius, the favourite bathing place, it was said, of the old Roman Emperor who built himself a dozen villas on the island because he could not decide which beautiful aspect he liked b
est.

  Outside the cavern of the Blue Grotto several small rowing-boats rocked lazily waiting for customers, as Kent had predicted. As soon as the boatmen caught sight of the motorboat, they raced towards it, surrounding it like a school of playful porpoises.

  Kent chose the soundest-looking boat and helped Althea and her father to transfer. ‘You must sit right down in the bottom of the boat,’ he warned them. ‘We have to duck our heads as we go in. The opening has a low roof.’

  The boatman, walnut-faced with tan and wrinkles, pulled strongly, then shipped the oars, lay almost fiat on his back and with the aid of chains fastened to the walls, propelled the boat swiftly into the Grotto.

  Althea caught her breath in a gasp of sheer amazement. It was so different from the way she had imagined it. She had conjured up a deep sapphire-blue pool, but this piece of water enclosed within rocky walls, the roof arched like a cathedral, was a lake of dancing aquamarines, glinting ceaselessly in the sunlight that struck at an angle through the aperture, reflecting fantastically from the walls, even on the faces of one’s companions. She plunged her hand into the cool water and held within her fingers a small cluster of sparkling gems.

  ‘Oh, it’s enchanting!’ she exclaimed as the boatman rowed in a circle, carefully skirting the glistening rock walls. His oars stirred up even more rippling nuances of translucent vivid colour, changing shape with every moment of time.

  When the boatman took the party out through the narrow aperture, the sea appeared almost dull after the blinding luminosity of the refracted water display in the Grotto.

  ‘I can hardly believe it exists,’ murmured Althea as Kent helped her back into the motor-boat.

  ‘It was famous in Roman times and before then, but for centuries no one bothered about it until near the beginning of the last century when someone rediscovered it and thought it an attraction. A painter, I think he was. Whatever his pictures were like, we owe him a kind word.’

  The motor-boat puttered along leisurely and Althea saw the seaward view of some of the places to which she had walked. Jagged precipices drifted by, dark red or heliotrope, pale grey or mottled white, with sometimes a vivid splash of green or orange. These multi-coloured rocks scored by wind and seas, sometimes split open by landslides to display hidden surfaces, gave no hint that above and beyond them lay fertile vineyards or trim pink-washed villas.

  The boat rounded Punta Carena with its lighthouse and turned along the south coast of Capri towards the Green Grotto.

  ‘I haven’t seen the vestige of a mermaid,’ complained Althea.

  Kent laughed. ‘Perhaps you’re too sceptical. You can’t expect to see mermaids unless you really believe in them.’

  ‘And you do?’

  ‘Of course. Every inlet in the coast was full of sirens or mermaids longing to entice unwary sailors or fishermen into their caves.’

  ‘That’s always been a good excuse for men who wanted to dally in some more pleasant place than their hometown,’ said Mr. Buckland, who had been idly listening to the conversation.

  Althea made some trivial laughing remark, but Kent’s face was thoughtful. ‘I believe you’ve given me the idea I’ve been searching for,’ he said slowly. ‘This so-called opera I’m trying to write. I’ve had only a few hazy ideas of the music and also two or three legends on which to base the story, but I need a strong pivotal character.’ Kent nodded and smiled at Mr. Buckland. ‘Thanks very much, if I may use your notion.’

  ‘Of course. I was only generalising.’

  Althea gave Kent a sidelong glance. ‘Beware, Kent. My father is an astute businessman. Before you know where you are, he’ll be demanding a share of the royalties!’

  ‘Oh no, Althea!’ he protested. ‘I’m not that much of a tycoon. There’s no copyright in mermaids, anyway.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ agreed Kent. ‘Let mermaids be free for all.’ By now they had arrived at the entrance to the Green Grotto and Althea gazed in wonderment at the enormous liquid emerald offered by the sea as a small part of its handiwork of thousands of years.

  At Marina Piccola, the small beach on the south side of Capri, Kent asked, ‘How d’you feel about continuing round the rest of the island after lunch? Or will you do that trip another day?’

  Althea allowed her father to decide that question for himself. ‘Another time, I think,’ Mr. Buckland said. Althea was relieved, for she knew her father needed rest in the afternoons. She was glad, too, that she had not been forced to give Kent the impression that she was hoping to have another sea trip with him.

  Kent chose a restaurant with a shady garden and a view of the sea. He ordered various Italian dishes with which Mr. Buckland was familiar.

  ‘You probably know a lot more about Italian cooking than I do,’ Kent said. ‘You’ve been to so many parts of Italy.’

  ‘Mostly in the towns. It’s in the country parts that you often find the most enjoyable local dishes.’

  For her part, Althea was content to eat the dish of spaghetti with mussels she had chosen and drink Vesuvio wine from the Naples district.

  Kent suggested that Mr. Buckland might like to visit the Villa Castagna. ‘We’ll take a taxi up there and you might be interested in what I’m doing. You can have your siesta there just as well as anywhere else.’

  Lawrence Buckland welcomed the idea. ‘Yes, I’d like to see what Carla calls your old ruin.’

  Mention of Carla struck Althea with a sense of guilt. There was no reason in the world why Althea and her father should not spend a day with Kent, but all the same Althea was apprehensive and now welcomed the idea of postponing her next meeting with the Marchettis as long as possible.

  ‘I’d rather you see my tumbledown old shack first,’ Kent explained when they arrived at his villa. ‘Once you’ve visited San Michele and seen its wonderful treasures, anything I may restore is an anti-climax.’

  Althea had not so far entered any part of the villa, so it was as new to her as to her father. She now viewed the large salon, its walls still rough and unpainted.

  ‘I thought of having plain whitewash here,’ explained Kent. ‘Not much furniture. Less than I have now. This lot is junk, but I’m hoping to buy a couple of good tables and some old rugs. The piano I must have, of course. It serves, but it’s not a very good one.’

  He sat down on a tattered old brocade stool and moved his hands lightly over the keys, striking a chord or two with runs. ‘One day I’ll acquire a really good instrument—but I doubt whether the cost will come out of the proceeds of my excellent operas.’

  ‘Don’t despair,’ advised Althea lightly. ‘Many composers have suffered badly on their first nights only to find themselves famous later on.’

  Kent grinned. ‘Like Puccini with his “Madam Butterfly” fiasco, when everything went wrong for him and, I believe, even the scenery fell down. Yes, the public made it up to him afterwards.’

  He led the other two outside and into a bedroom sparsely furnished, but cluttered with sheet music, operatic scores and magazines. In one corner the jumble was varied by a collection of fragments of marble or stone.

  ‘Eventually I’m hoping to turn this room into a small dining-room, since it has one of the best views. Then I shall move my bedroom into another at the side of the house.’

  ‘What are you hoping to find among all these bits of marble and so on?’ asked Mr. Buckland.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Kent replied. ‘I don’t expect to be so lucky as the Swedish doctor at San Michele with his beautiful mosaic pavement or his treasures found at the bottom of the sea and in hidden caves, but it would be pleasant to be able to put together a few fragments of marble and find they added up to something recognisable—part of a head, perhaps, or a wall decoration.’

  His tone was dreamy and wistful and as though he were slightly ashamed of such self-indulgence, he said briskly, ‘The kitchen—if you can call such a rough place by that name—is round this corner.’ Althea and her father followed him to a tiny building about the size of a sm
all woodshed. ‘Assunta does most of her cooking outside and as I’m only here in the summer, that fits in quite well, but when there’s rain or the sirocco blows, then she must have some protection.’

  Althea did not envy the woman. ‘She must be a saint to put up with such conditions,’ she commented. ‘I don’t believe I could turn out an omelette in a place like this.’

  Kent eyed her with a smiling derision. ‘You’ve been pampered and spoiled with stainless steel sinks and all kinds of gadgets to shred this and mix that. You’re not tough enough to cope with semi-primitive situations.’

  ‘Are you? Why can’t you pretend you’re on safari and cope with your own cooking chores? Why burden poor Assunta?’

  ‘Don’t talk so indignantly. You’ll wake poor Assunta from her well-earned siesta.’

  He pointed to a shady corner where the old woman rested in a broken chair, her wrinkled face downbent, her work-worn hands idly clasped in her lap.

  ‘Won’t it take years to do all you want to make this a really habitable villa?’ she asked in a whisper, moving away a little from the sleeping Assunta.

  ‘I’m sure it will,’ he agreed. ‘Even when it becomes habitable, I shall still want to go on adding, altering, improving, restoring.’

  ‘An obsession or a hobby?’ she queried.

  ‘Both. But I’m not yet an old man. I’ve years in front of me, I hope.’

  Althea had not thought of approximating his age. Now as she turned away from him so that she should not be caught scrutinising his face, she guessed that he was between twenty-eight and thirty. He could hardly be less, taking into account the years of training before he would qualify, and the experience he must have gained since then if he was now entrusted with important restoration commissions.