An Italian Holiday

by Maeve Haran

  The car drew up and the driver announced: ‘Villa Le Sirenuse, signora,’ and ran out with a large umbrella.

  Angela looked around, amazed. The house itself was a sturdy square building but there were several more wings plus arches and towers and cloisters and a green copper dome, amongst huge gardens dotted with statuary. This wasn’t a villa – it was more like a whole medieval hamlet!

  An old lady with the look of a Dolce & Gabbana granny, her white hair piled on her head in a bun, stood on the back steps smiling and waving.

  ‘Buonasera, Signorina Gwilliams!’ To Angela’s amusement she pronounced ‘Williams’ as if it began with a G. ‘My name is Beatrice. I am the housekeeper. You are the first of the ladies to arrive.’

  What a strange statement, Angela thought; there was only herself and Claire coming. She put it down to some oddity of language difference.

  ‘Good,’ announced Angela. ‘Then I would like to look at the rooms, if I may.’

  Beatrice led her through the unassuming back door. If this indeed was to be a hotel it would have to have a more imposing entrance than this, she thought. There followed a maze of dark passageways with small rooms off them leading into a large hall.

  Angela stopped dead, transfixed by a vast fresco of The Annunciation. The quality of the painting was extraordinary. She had never seen a Mary with so much shining humility.

  Beatrice followed her eyes. ‘Our greatest treasure,’ she announced with quiet pride. ‘The villa was once a convent, until it was, how do you say, ravished away by the Prince of Lerini.’

  Angela hoped the nuns hadn’t been ravished too, and told herself not to be irreverent. Mind you, nuns seemed to be up for a bit of ravishing in those days. ‘Quite a posh convent,’ Angela murmured.

  ‘What is posh?’ enquired Beatrice.

  ‘Sontuoso?’ attempted Angela. ‘Sumptuous?’

  ‘Sì, sì, molto sontuoso!’ Beatrice nodded enthusiastically. ‘But the father of the prioress, he was the Prince of Lerini. He liked to come and stay here and do a retreat and pray to God that he could defeat his enemies the Florentines.’

  ‘Very secular,’ murmured Angela to herself. ‘I wonder if God would help me defeat my enemies the vulture capitalists?’

  ‘God will help any who pray to Him onestamente, from the heart,’ said Beatrice and she bowed her head.

  ‘That’s me out, then,’ admitted Angela. ‘Let’s see the rest please.’

  ‘Of course. Follow me.’

  She led Angela into an enormous hall with a peeling frescoed ceiling and marvellous buttressed arches ending in carved angels. Angela, businesswoman that she was, couldn’t help imagining a large reception desk in one corner. It would be a perfect use of space.

  They climbed a wide stone staircase which, intriguingly, had a different stair carpet on each level. Angela decided she liked it. It undercut the austere grandness of the stone. Beatrice led her into the first bedroom and Angela instantly decided this would be hers. There were more arches, two floor-length windows and a wonderful canopied bed, covered in some outrageously expensive-looking devoré velvet. There was even an enormous carved stone fireplace along one wall.

  ‘Does it work?’ she asked Beatrice.

  Beatrice nodded.

  ‘Could you ask someone to light it?’

  ‘In aprile?’ Beatrice demanded, scandalized.

  ‘We British feel the cold.’

  ‘Va bene.’ She shrugged. ‘You are the guest.’

  ‘What a wonderful room!’ Angela enthused to soothe her ruffled feathers.

  ‘It was the Prince’s room.’ Beatrice indicated an ancient prie-dieu in the corner of the room with a carved wooden statue of the Virgin above it.

  ‘He liked to get round women, did he?’ Angela teased. ‘Very Italian.’

  Beatrice’s granite face told Angela she’d managed to insult both her religion and her race in one sentence. Very clever. She must remember she wasn’t in London any longer.

  ‘I am sorry,’ Angela said penitently. ‘That was unforgivable.’

  ‘We know what happens in England. No one goes to church. Men marry men.’

  ‘One more question.’ Angela steered her away from this dangerous direction. ‘I wondered what happens about eating. Should I go out to a local restaurant?’

  Beatrice looked as if Angela had now insulted her mother and quite possibly her grandmother into the bargain.

  ‘Dinner will be provided for you here.’

  Angela smiled her most dazzling smile.

  ‘I am so grateful to hear that.’

  Beatrice bowed very formally.

  ‘Will my suitcase be brought up to the room?’

  ‘Giovanni will bring it. Luigi is too old. Giovanni also works in the garden.’

  ‘And the fire?’ she added, realizing that she was treating the place like a hotel. But wasn’t that what the owner wanted to make it?

  ‘Giovanni will light it also.’

  ‘Thank you, Beatrice. You have been most helpful and welcoming.’ A tip, she imagined, would make Beatrice jump off the bell tower.

  Angela sat down in one of the armchairs and looked out of the window. Nothing but a grey blur. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow would be different. She got out her phone to make a few notes about the villa’s hotel potential, grateful that she was here with a purpose. It was more relaxing than just holidaying. For her at least.

  After ten minutes of waiting, Angela was feeling a little less relaxed. When she travelled, she made a point of always staying in hotels, no matter how generous the invitations were to stay in the houses of her suppliers, colleagues or even friends. Angela liked to be in control and she wasn’t in control now. What she really wanted was to call room service for a Bellini or a chilled glass of Soave. But she couldn’t. And where was her damn suitcase?

  In another ten minutes she was almost climbing the walls when there was a loud rap at the door. ‘Entra!’ she called, remembering her summer-school Italian.

  She was glad she was already sitting down because had she not been she would have had to. Positively the most beautiful man she had ever seen had come into the room holding her suitcase in one hand and a large bunch of red roses in the other.

  He was olive-skinned and muscular, but not too muscular, with an enchanting smile and thick black hair, a lock of which had fallen over one eye from his exertions. Angela longed to carefully tuck it behind his ear.

  ‘Buonasera, Signorina Gwilliams. I have your suitcase, and Beatrice, she is so sorry – these should be in your room before.’ He indicated the roses. ‘The driver, he bring them from the flower market in Napoli. Very fresh. I arrange for you?’

  ‘Thank you,’ managed Angela, grateful she could speak at all.

  ‘Tomorrow you must see around the gardens.’ That smile again. ‘They were planted by nuns, maybe that is why they grow so well. The good Lord blesses them.’ He reached into the pocket of his jeans. They were so tight that Angela was amazed he could fit anything in the pockets. She tried not to stare like some sex-starved sixty-year-old, even if that was what she was. ‘Fiammiferi!’ he announced. ‘How do you say in English?’

  ‘Matches,’ Angela replied faintly.

  He bent down to light the logs. The waist of his jeans dipped to reveal not some hideous builder’s bum but paler olive skin, hidden and delicate. God, she’d better pull herself together or she’d pass out!

  ‘Enjoy!’ he offered. For a moment the old Angela reasserted herself and she almost asked him for a Bellini. Instead she smiled back.

  ‘Beatrice, she want to know if you come down soon?’

  ‘Yes, sì. I will just unpack and be right down.’

  He nodded and took himself and his devastating smile off, thank God.

  Angela put her suitcase on the canopied bed. She hated those stupid suitcase stands which were never big enough for her bag, which opened down the middle and split into two sides like a sandwich. Like Mary Poppins’s bag with the lamp standard in it, t
hey seemed to fit twice as much in as any other bag she’d owned and yet when zipped shut they looked quite modest. Angela pitied all those people who’d fallen for the Louis Vuittons, when hers was so much better. But then brands had never appealed to her.

  She began to unpack, something she always found soothing because she packed so well. To her it was a science, a thing of beauty. All her clothes were wrapped in tissue paper and stowed in immaculate order. Some people recommended rolling your clothes, but Angela laughed and reached for the tissue paper. The delight of having a suitcase with two halves was that you could put all the bulky things – shoes, hairdryers, lotions and potions, in one side, and stack your clothes in the other.

  Angela always had to unpack before she started any business meeting. If possible, she would even buy flowers, if they weren’t provided. Only then would she feel at home and relaxed.

  She wouldn’t need to do that here. She dipped her head down to sniff the perfect red roses. No perfume. But they were certainly beautiful. As she shook out her last dress and hung it on one of the padded silk hangers in a wardrobe so large it looked as if Narnia had to be the other side, she visibly relaxed.

  In fact, she felt a new and unfamiliar tingle which, she realized with surprise, was anticipation.

  Naturally, Claire noted, Martin’s suggestions worked like clockwork. ‘Shuttle to Naples Centrale Station. Train to Salerno. Bright blue bus in the Via Vinciprova,’ whose picture Martin had helpfully downloaded, ‘from Salerno to Lerini. (Buy tickets from tabacchi shop if booking office closed, they are more helpful anyway.)’ Clearly, Martin had been trawling all the travel blogs for this level of detail. ‘From the main piazza in Lerini next to the harbour you’ll find the final bus to Lanzarella. If you’re lucky, there’s an open-top one.’ Except, of course, that Martin couldn’t have known it would be pouring with rain. ‘Last leg takes twenty minutes. Arrive in Lanzarella.’

  Of course it was amazing, a real labour of – what – love? Or control, even though she was a thousand miles away.

  If it was indeed love, why did it make her so bloody angry?

  Monica lifted her backpack from the carousel and strapped it on. She had seen hordes of students striding along with these at the university and had admired the freedom it gave them. She and Brian had even nurtured a long-held fantasy that as soon as they retired they would go backpacking in South America. They had even bought the maps before he had the heart attack.

  Monica wiped away a tear, consoling herself with the thought that Brian would approve of this venture. She often heard his voice in her head encouraging her to ‘get away from bloody Beaconsfield and see the world!’

  Customs was easy and Monica was soon on the airport forecourt.

  ‘Taxi, signorina?’ asked a smiling tout.

  Monica almost replied ‘Good try!’ Especially the signorina bit, but decided to enjoy it instead. She didn’t need a taxi. She knew exactly where she was going because she’d already been here once before on a trip with students to Pompeii and Herculaneum.

  She jumped on a bus that took her to the Piazza Garibaldi, in central Naples, and looked around. There was the mainline station and now she had to find the Porto Nolano, the one for the Circumvesuviana train. Just the name thrilled her – the train around Mount Vesuvius! It turned out to be in a much scruffier part of the city, but Monica was reassured by all the other tourists looking for it as well. She watched the amazing Naples traffic, everyone hooting, swerving between lanes, and the way the thousands of motorini, the low-powered scooters that seemed the most popular form of transport in Italy, weaved in and out without being squashed by the huge trucks that almost looked as if knocking one down would be an enjoyable game for them.

  The ticket office to the Circumvesuviana turned out to be an old railway carriage and the train more New York than Mount Vesuvius – bright red but entirely covered in graffiti. Monica scanned the destination board. The ‘direct’ train stopped at fifteen stops, God alone knew how many the indirect one stopped at.

  She bought a ticket and stepped on board. Inside, it was just like the tube – only with views. After just a few stops they reached Pompeii. Monica’s heart swelled. She would be able to come and spend some proper time here another day; it wasn’t that far from Lanzarella. And then Herculaneum! But it was Mount Vesuvius that really thrilled her. She stared at the volcano, extinct since 1954, with fascination.

  And then the rain began. Proper English rain in dismal sheets, obscuring the volcano and everything else.

  ‘Be careful, signora!’ a voice hissed in her ear. Monica turned to find one of those Italian widows, shrouded top to toe in black, whispering in her ear. ‘This train is worst in Italy for borseggiatori.’ She acted out an exaggerated vignette of somebody picking a pocket, almost good enough for Oliver.

  Instinctively, Monica patted the money belt inside her fleece. It was fine.

  ‘Grazie, signora,’ Monica thanked her, moving off all the same in case this was an elaborate set-up. The only time she’d been robbed in England was by someone purporting to be collecting for charity.

  She was quite relieved when they reached Sorrento. It was still pouring with rain, so she tried to encourage herself by remembering the time she’d seen Pavarotti – bizarrely sharing the stage with Meat Loaf – singing the wrenching ballad ‘Torna a Sorrento’ on stage together. It had been quite wonderful.

  Now she had a dilemma. The sensible course from Sorrento would be the bus to Lerini. She could even see the orange SITA bus waiting in a line of others. Valiantly, she walked past it towards the harbour.

  ‘Hydrofoil for Lerini?’ she enquired of a flower seller who pointed down the opposite street.

  The hydrofoil stop was about five minutes away. Monica had to hold tight so as not to lose her balance on the gangplank with her heavy backpack. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought quite so many books. She was almost knocked over when a handsome young man bumped into her and then made a big performance of making sure she was all right.

  ‘Va bene, va bene,’ she kept telling him.

  Although the journey to Lerini only took an hour it was deeply disappointing. She had to stay inside and the windows had fugged up. The rain persisted and had masked the entire coastline, which, she had been told, was so spectacular she would fall in love with it and never be able to leave.

  To cap it all, when she got to Lerini, she’d just missed the bus to Lanzarella and the next one was in two hours.

  ‘Is there an alternative?’ she asked the ticket seller hopefully.

  ‘Mi dispiace,’ was his reply with a shake of the head. There obviously wasn’t.

  ‘Taxi or foot,’ she was informed by one of those know-it-all Americans who seem to be more familiar with a place than the locals. Still, she ought to be grateful. ‘How much is a taxi?’

  It was a lot but she was tired after her early start. She delved inside her fleece for her money belt and almost fainted. It had gone! Yet she had paid for her ticket on the hydrofoil! The widow had been genuine but the handsome young man must have been a thief.

  She almost collapsed where she stood.

  She didn’t even have the money for the bus fare. ‘How the hell am I going to get to Lanzarella?’ she demanded, on the point of dissolving into tears. Monica pulled herself together. She wasn’t the weeping type.

  ‘You could take the short cut,’ smirked the helpful American. ‘It’s only a thousand steps.’

  Before she could face it she found a quiet spot sheltered by the yellow stucco front of the cathedral. She heard her mother’s voice telling her it had been her own stupid choice to arrive by this circuitous route. Any sensible person would have chosen the bus or train. If she’d been at home, that might have depressed her, but here, far away from Mariella’s nagging, Monica realized it just made her angry. There was a fountain to the right of the church and Monica took a long drink. She was sure the water here was fine. In another ten minutes she was ready to start the climb of a thousand step
s up the mountainside to Lanzarella.

  Sylvie retrieved her three bags from the carousel, piled them on the trolley and headed for the exit. She would have been quite happy to fix up private transport to the villa, but her old assistant Alessandro was Neapolitan and it seemed his manly honour was at stake if she didn’t let him meet her himself. As Alessandro was about as manly as Julian Clary in stilettos, this had made Sylvie smile.

  She looked along the row of excited families and taxi drivers with their cards, wondering if he was here yet. She didn’t have long to wait. ‘Sylvie! How long since I have seen you, lovely Sylvie!’

  The rest of the passengers watched in fascination as a young man in motorcycle leathers shook out his long black curls, ran across the space between them and physically lifted Sylvie from the floor. No mean feat, given Sylvie’s weight.

  ‘I wanted to kill Tony when I saw that email. How stupid can straight men be?’

  ‘I expect gay men are stupid too when it comes to love.’

  Alessandro put his finger to her lips. ‘No, do not make allowances. Do you give me permission to kill him?’

  It struck Sylvie that this was the second offer she’d had to bump her husband off.

  ‘Only in opera. Where’s the car?’

  ‘Cars are boring. I have brought my motorbike. My assistant will take the bags but we, mia cara Sylvie, we are going to arrive in style. He handed her a black leather jumpsuit. ‘Go, put it on! I will mind the bags till Fabio collects them.’

  Sylvie made herself smile. The truth was, she was terrified of motorbikes and God alone knew what her already unruly hair would be like when they got there. But Alessandro had always been a hard boy to refuse, and at least they would beat the hideous rush-hour snarl-ups between here and Lanzarella. She headed for the Ladies’ toilet.