The Italian Affair

by Helen Crossfield

  “It’s not an amateur assessment. You’re absolutely right” said Issy as she started to swim out to sea again, she didn’t want to go ashore yet, she needed some space to think. As she got further out, she wondered what would happen if she just continued across the still blue surface of the water and only stopped when she couldn’t swim anymore.

  Dan would not be able to rescue her and it would just be her against the elements. Maybe it was better now to just not face the pain anymore. At sea she was free and the vastness didn’t scare her. She would disappear forever and no-one would know how she’d met her end apart from Dan. Being onshore, facing the world and the future on her own was far scarier.

  “Hey Issy,” Dan shouted loudly across the water. “Don’t go so far out to sea I’m not sure how safe it is to swim beyond the cove.”

  Once again Issy heard the anxiety rise in his voice and again responded to it. It wasn’t fair to play games. Dan had been so kind to her. She couldn’t ruin his day by dying. Slowly she turned round and made her way back to the rocks.

  As she finally climbed back out of the sea, Dan covered her with a towel. He could see she was shivering despite the heat of the sun.

  “Issy,” he whispered. “Don’t torture yourself about Jeremy. Just let it go otherwise it will eat you up and make you unhappy for the next few years of your life. You’ve had so much pain and by the law of averages these next few years should be the best years. I’m sure of that.”

  This sentence more than any other seemed to light a flare inside her and her face darkened.

  Grabbing both of Dan’s hands Issy asked “Dan, have you lost someone in your life you really loved? It is just so difficult to have what I have had taken away from me twice. To have lost my dad and to have lost someone I loved so intensely, desperately and so deeply and then have nothing is unbearable. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth going on.”

  Dan removed his hands from hers and cupped her face before saying softly.

  “My dad walked out on us when I was five. Very different to losing a father I loved. I hated my dad he used to physically abuse me. But it taught me early on in life, that in the end you are on your own. Most of us put up with relationships that aren’t right as they fill a void or repeat the ones from our childhood. That‘s why my mum kicked my dad out. She said she was determined to show him, and us, that verbal and physical abuse was not acceptable. She’d had an abusive father and felt it was up to her to break the cycle.”

  Issy stood on the wet towel in front of Dan and put both her arms around his wet shoulders. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered in his ear.

  “What on earth for?” Dan replied.

  “For being selfish and just blabbering on about me and my problems I had no idea that you lost your dad too,” she replied.

  Naples – 7am local time 23 September 1986

  Issy removed the final crumbs of breakfast pastry and milky cappuccino froth from around her mouth, as mid-wipe she heard the sudden and unmistakable sound of a single gunshot.

  On hearing the noise, she ran out of Giovanni’s bar where she’d taken her usual “friar’s breakfast” – as Dan had started to call it – and walked quickly in the direction of the blast. Eerily apart from her, the streets suddenly seemed deserted and silent.

  After a month of living in Naples, she was pretty sure she could pin-point the sound to the exact street.

  Taking a hard left at the Rosticerria (an Italian take away), she passed the tobacco shop, Pasquale’s posh pant shop and the perfume shop on the corner.

  As she finally turned into Via Maria Magdala, which is where she’d correctly envisaged the shot to have come from, there in front of her was a young man – possibly a few years older than her – laying prostate on the floor with a single gunshot wound to the side of his head. A pair of round rimmed spectacles lay at his side.

  As Issy watched the fresh blood seep out slowly from his head onto the pavement into a little pool, her fingers automatically reached down to try and help him.

  Realising she would need something to stem the alarming flow of blood she stood up slightly and pulled some tissues from her bag before moving forwards towards the injured man again.

  History had taught her to react quickly to any emergency which involved possible death, just in case something could be done in the last seconds and minutes of life.

  As Issy bent down a bit further, she had a sense of history repeating itself in slow motion.

  Firstly, this whole situation reminded her of the moments so long ago when she’d stretched out her fingers towards her father when he’d fallen onto the kitchen floor.

  Here she was, an adult version of that little girl, in a life or death situation stretching her hands out again but this time with the aim of stemming the flow of blood seeping from the head of a stranger.

  As Issy got closer to the ground, she started to think about mouth to mouth resuscitation as the man didn’t appear to be breathing. As she bent down even further her eyes were distracted by a pair of sun kissed feet in a pair of European looking leather loafers standing next to her on the pavement. Their position and location meant that they couldn’t possibly belong to the dead man.

  A strong hand belonging to the feet caught hold of hers mid-flow, grabbing first one and then both of her hands, pulling her upright. Rather than pull back, she intuitively trusted the hand that held hers.

  As Issy re-oriented herself as she was forced upright, she tried to catch a glimpse of her abductor. Before they took flight together she briefly caught sight of the right-hand side of his face in profile before they started to run.

  From what bit she saw he was young, good-looking and, in addition to his stylish leather loafers, was quite well-dressed in a short-sleeved blue Ralph Lauren polo shirt and faded jeans.

  “How strange,” Issy thought as they started to move away together from the crime scene “that this should be happening.” And yet at no point did she try and pull away.

  Just like when she’d met Jeremy on a freezing cold day in February as she walked next to the front lawn of Balliol College, she seemed powerless to stop herself from moving her legs in the same direction as his.

  Even stranger, that during these first few seconds and minutes of possible kidnap, no words had been spoken.

  The man with the loafers had simply grabbed her hands and started to pull her gently away from the dying man on the floor. After easing her up, he’d then started to run more urgently and she had compliantly given in to him and allowed herself to be taken.

  As her mind began to catch up with what had just happened Issy asked her abductor a question.

  “What about the person back there who was shot?” Issy asked breathlessly as their feet pounded the stone pavement in perfect unison.

  There was no reply. The man to whom she was attached looked over his shoulder, motioned for her to be silent and gripped her hands harder than before and stepped up the pace.

  After about half a mile of intense running, it became harder for them both to breathe and they both started panting with the exertion and the heat of the sun on their faces. Patches of circular sweat spread across her abductors’ broad back as he continued to drag her along.

  “We need to turn round,” Issy shouted again as she gasped for air. “We can’t just run away from a man who needs us like that. Where are we going?”

  By now they had left the main street by the language school, and were trampling over thick undergrowth, making it more difficult to both remain upright and to speak.

  Issy ducked to avoid branches that intermittently smacked her in the face. As they raced on she tried to get her bearings. From what she could see ahead they were running at full pelt towards an ancient statue of a Roman Emperor on a wrought iron veranda.

  Imperious and Socratic even, the statue was surrounded by deep red geranium in ancient Roman looking urns and various tropical plants that had clearly not been cut back during the summer months.

  To the left of th
e Emperor’s head stood Vesuvius and to the right the open sea. Surely they would have to stop soon Issy thought frantically. Either that or go headlong together over the balcony and into the water with a stone bust.

  As Issy gasped at what might be her final steps on earth, her abductor started to slow down and finally came to a full stop in front of the statue which he then bizarrely hugged whilst hanging onto one of her hands.

  As he pulled himself away from the Emperor, they faced each other for the first time since the kidnap and Issy found herself starting into a beautiful chiselled face defined by a rich and varied Roman ancestry.

  These fine features were framed by jet black longish hair slightly curled at the ends. Set within her abductor’s face was a pair of large dark moist brown eyes and full red lips which when open revealed a set of straight and immaculately white teeth.

  Such was the beauty of the man in front of her that Issy forgot momentarily the reason they had come to be together in the first place. As she regained her senses she then tried to figure out how and why this Adonis had taken her from a crime scene and brought her to a sort of Garden of Eden which at the centre housed a Roman Emperor whom the Adonis clearly worshipped.

  Applying logic provided no immediate answers and after so much silence and panting, Issy appeared startled when the Adonis finally spoke in heavily accented English.

  “I am sorry I do that” he said as he looked deep into Issy’s eyes.

  “What beautiful eyes,” Issy thought “they were almost black” as she stared back deeply into his. They were like pools of effervescent water that danced and glistened in the sunlight. She wanted to dive into them, to own them to be his.

  As they continued to gaze into the window of each others’ souls, she felt she understood everything about him without needing any kind of conversation.

  His magnificent Classical God like qualities unnerved Issy. Something monumental had happened to him in his lifetime to make him like this and yet he had prevented her from helping a dying man. What kind of God did that?

  “Why did you grab me just now?” said Issy panic rising. “I was trying to help someone who could still be alive if you hadn’t come along and run off with me.”

  The Adonis’s eyes now pierced hers. She could see that he was trying desperately hard to communicate everything he needed to say to her but didn’t have good enough English.

  And yet despite the lack of words, she intuitively understood that it was a complex layer of messages that he was finding almost impossible to translate.

  A canopy of what looked like burnt banana leafs rustled overhead in the breeze, but between them there was only silence as they continued looking at each other trying to weigh things up and understand why they had come to be facing each other.

  After a sustained period of eye contact and silence, the Adonis finally spoke - sotto voce and resolutely.

  “No. That is not possible. The man is died. The end. Finito.” It was a beautiful rich Italian male voice. So seductive, so masculine despite the sparse number of harsh words that eventually tumbled from his kissable lips that Issy almost missed what he said.

  Forgetting momentarily, the heavenliness of his voice, Issy closed her eyes. “How did he know the man was dead? How could he be so sure?” she thought.

  “Oh my God,” replied Issy turning to go “how do you know that he is dead for sure? He was shot but I did not have time to ascertain if he was dead. I need to turn back and help him or at least get an ambulance.”

  “Non. No” replied the Adonis shaking his head and using both his hands in a common exasperated local gesture which signalled that this was not possible.

  His eyes locked onto hers. It seemed to be the only way he could communicate with her properly.

  As Issy stared back at him she could read in his eyes that for some reason he was pleading with her to remain silent. He held on tightly to both of her hands in an attempt to stop her from running back as if he knew that this is what she was planning.

  As Issy tried to pull away her hands from his tightening grip, he grabbed her tightly putting his arms around her and brought her body towards his whilst she put up a bit of a feminist struggle.

  “Hey,” he said struggling to keep hold of her. “You are a very strong woman. It is….how do you say in English. It is dangerous. You understand?” The Adonis said firmly.

  As she wriggled out of his grip Issy felt both saddened at losing her proximity to a body that felt that it was made to fit hers and angry that someone was dying or even dead and she had done nothing to help him.

  “Yes I understand it is very dangerous,” Issy said in a high-pitched voice. “But please tell me why that means I can’t to go back to help that dying man – I had no proof he was dead. I need to know what is happening. Why did you stop me from going back I feel so bad about that?”

  The Adonis looked downcast at having to continue to explain and replied. “No feel bad. Very dangerous. You understand my English is not so good. No possible go back there ok? It eez not your problem it eez my problem. Silence. This is important.”

  Issy noticed for the first time since they’d started talking that the Adonis was now getting agitated. He had fear in his eyes. A fear not of the man dying but of not knowing what she might do next.

  Issy had seen REAL fear before. In the eyes of her father as he had fallen, the way he had tried to focus to better understand what had happened and the silent terror when no words had come out of his mouth before his eyes went blank.

  She remembered now that desperate look on his face as he tried to save his daughter from the pain that he knew, in the final seconds of life as his time on this earth ebbed away, would follow.

  It was this experience, and the fact that for some reason she trusted the man in front of her, that made her hold back and she finally started to calm down.

  Silently they both reached out and held onto each other closely. No more words were needed, they had reached a mutual understanding that for whatever reason they could not turn back and that silence was their code word.

  The Adonis looked down at the blonde curly head of hair that nestled into his chest. He cupped his hand around the back of Issy’s head and whispered into her ear. “What is your name?”

  Issy could smell coffee on his breath as he leant in towards her. The way he spoke to her and held her felt so familiar and secure as if at some time or somewhere in the past they had done this before.

  “Issy Mead” she replied. “And you. What is your name? Who are you? And what do you do?”

  “I am Bruno. I am …. How do you say in English? I am the underpant salesman from Pompeii.”

  Naples – 8am local time 23 September 1986

  Eventually, Issy had insisted on going back to Via Maria Magdala with the underpant salesman from Pompeii to see what could be done.

  As they retraced their steps, strangely there was no sign of chaos or death. In the time that it had taken to run from the crime scene to the Garden of Eden, hug the Roman Emperor, talk a bit and walk back the body had gone and the street had returned to normal.

  All that remained was a deathly quiet and a pool of blood on the pavement congealing under an increasingly hot mid-September sun. It was the only reminder that a life had been lost and a family somewhere in this city was now in mourning.

  Issy looked at the blood and felt sad and fearful. She thought about how the family would feel. Their lives turned upside down forever.

  She wondered what the man with the round spectacles had done wrong to deserve a shot to the head. “Where were his parents, his siblings, his girlfriend?” Issy thought mournfully as she continued to stare at the pool of blood,

  In death he had looked serene and at peace. He didn’t look like a criminal or a man who had diamonds in the front of his teeth. “Who must have hated him so much to blow his brains out?” Issy wanted to ask the Adonis who stood quietly at her side.

  “I am surprised everything is back to normal,” Issy said ev
entually. She’d only been in the city a short while but long enough to know that nothing happened quickly in Naples apart now seemingly the removal of dead bodies

  “Si” Bruno had replied simply in response before adding “It is always like this.”

  Issy waited to see if he wanted to expand. “Surely,” she thought as she watched his beautiful face “he had more to say on the matter than that even if it was just outrage?”

  But that was it. There seemed nothing more Bruno wanted to add. A man had died and all Bruno could say was “It is always like this.”

  “What the hell did that mean?” Issy thought. “Was the random killing of young men on innocuous looking street corners a common occurrence in this place but just one she hadn’t yet encountered?”

  Trying to make sense of it all, Issy played back the last hour. She had witnessed a dead man lying on the street shot down by a single bullet. She had also been stopped from intervening by a local called Bruno – whom she’d never met before – who had told her he sold underpants on a stall in Pompeii.

  Despite his seemingly simple trade, he seemed to know the reason why the man had died, remained unsurprised at the short length of time it took to remove his body but was not prepared to add further information to his arsenal of knowledge.

  “The situation seemed totally unfathomable,” Issy thought as she glanced at her watch. It was eight o’clock and time for school.

  “How did this happen?” she said out loud to Bruno not really expecting an answer from him. “How can I switch from being present at a murder scene one minute, and effortlessly and seamlessly move into the classroom and concentrate on the conjugation of English verbs the next? What do I do next? Who do I tell?”

  Bruno walked with Issy as she started to make her way to school before answering her questions with a catch all statement about remaining silent.