Last Voyage of the Valentina

by Santa Montefiore

  19

  A lba arrived at the station out of breath but unexpectedly triumphant. She felt as if she had committed murder and gotten away with it. She wondered what the manager of the hotel would do once he discovered the unpaid bill and the wrecked room. By the time they traced her she’d be miles away. An anonymous face among thousands. She looked about her. The Italian women were olive-skinned and brown-haired like she was. There wasn’t a blonde in sight. She fitted in. No one stared at her as if she were alien. In fact, no one stared at her at all. The fear she had had of predatory men, hiding down alleyways and loitering outside bars, lifted. One or two smiled at her warmly, their eyes running admiringly up her long brown legs and over her yellow sundress. They weren’t menacing. They were appreciative. She was used to that kind of benign interest and she enjoyed it. However, she had a huge practical problem. She intended to take a train to Sorrento, then a boat to Incantellaria, but she had no money. She was about to return one of the smiles in the hope of borrowing the money from one of those kind, appreciative men, but Fatman’s harsh words were now branded upon her soul. “If you suck my cock I’ll pay for your flight home.” She blushed with shame and averted her eyes, hurrying on.

  The next train to Sorrento departed in fourteen minutes. She found the platform, then watched the gate like a train robber. The official checking tickets was a small, skinny youth with a nervous twitch. Every few seconds his whole face disappeared into one monumental blink. Alba suddenly felt a wave of compassion. Unaccustomed to that particular emotion, her whole body bristled as if trying on a new skin. Like Fatman, the young official was too easy to intimidate. She wished he were tall, strong, and capable; then at least she wouldn’t feel so bad making a fool of him. Passengers strode up to him, chatting to one another while he punched holes in their tickets. They recoiled in horror at his nervous tic or tittered behind their hands. They didn’t care to return his polite greeting. Some didn’t even mutter “thank you.” Alba lit a cigarette and sat down on her suitcase. She knew what she’d do. Normally this kind of charade would have amused her. But today it didn’t. Alessandro Favioli’s mocking face rose up in her mind and Fatman’s obscene suggestion echoed against the weakened walls of her conscience. Her spirit flooded with self-loathing.

  Right, now’s your moment, Alba. Seize these tears and make good use of them! She stubbed out her cigarette and strode toward the twitching official.

  As Alba approached, the young official’s face convulsed uncontrollably. He wasn’t struck so much by her beauty as by the sheer scale of her grief. She was inconsolable. Her lovely face was red and blotchy, her shoulders hunched and shuddering with every sob.

  “I’m so sorry,” she sniffed, dabbing her cheeks with a damp tissue. Then she lifted her eyes and he took a step back. They were the palest gray, like rare, bewitching crystals and so exquisite that his mind went blank. “My lover has left me,” she wailed. The official looked appalled and his face suddenly stopped its violent twitching. “He doesn’t love me anymore, so I’m leaving Naples. I can’t live in this city knowing that the one who has crushed my heart is living here too, breathing the same air, walking the same pavements. You do understand, don’t you?” She reached out and placed a hand on his arm. Her ploy was working beautifully. His still face was frozen into an expression of the deepest compassion and for a moment she forgot herself. She stopped crying and smiled at him. “You have a lovely face,” she said truthfully, for now that she could see it properly, she realized that he was still a boy, and surprisingly handsome. He blushed but did not turn away.

  “Grazie, signora,” he said finally in a soft, shy voice.

  She gripped his arm with her fingers. “Thank you,” she said meaningfully, before hurrying down the platform, her spirit buoyant with the knowledge that she had got away without showing a ticket, but also that her scam hadn’t humiliated him. She had made him happy. The surprising thing was that his obvious joy had infected her with happiness too.

  Alba had learned a valuable lesson: people wore their bodies like coats. Whether ugly or beautiful, fat or thin, still or twitching, they were all vulnerable human beings beneath, deserving of respect. Then she remembered something Fitz had once said. “If you look hard enough you’ll find beauty and light in the ugliest and darkest places.” Alba realized she rarely looked at all.

  She placed her bag in the luggage rack at the end of the carriage, then found a seat beside the window. When the ticket collector came through she would simply explain that she must have dropped hers on the platform. She wouldn’t have been allowed through the gate without a ticket, obviously?

  A couple of attractive young men took the seats opposite her and placed sandwiches and drinks on the table dividing them. She wished she had brought a book. The last time she had read an entire volume had been at school: Jane Austen’s Emma, which had been such a struggle she was still getting over it a decade later. Reluctantly, she pulled out the well-handled Vogue she had read on the plane and flicked aimlessly through it.

  It wasn’t long before the young men attempted to ignite a conversation. Normally she would have been only too happy to talk to them, but today their attention offended her. Did she look that approachable? That easy?

  “Would you like a biscuit?” asked the first one.

  “No thank you,” she replied without smiling. The first looked at the second for encouragement. The second nodded.

  “Where are you from?” he persevered.

  She knew her accent gave her away. Then she was struck with an idea and a smile crept onto her face.

  “I’m English, married to an Italian,” she said, leaning forward and looking up coyly from under her lashes. “It is so nice to talk to a couple of handsome young men. You see, my husband is old. Oh, he’s rich and powerful and gives me everything I want. I live in a vast palazzo. I have houses all over the world. Enough staff to sink a liner and countless pieces of jewelry. But when it comes to love, well, as I said, he’s old.”

  The daring one nudged the other excitedly. They both wriggled in their seats, barely able to restrain their lust as they contemplated this frisky young woman whose husband was too old to make love to her.

  Then, remembering that she was seated in a second-class carriage, she added, “Sometimes I like to be anonymous. I like to ride with normal people. So I leave the car and the chauffeur at the station and take the train. One meets fascinating people on trains and, of course, I am beyond my husband’s reach.”

  “What you need are a couple of young men to give you what your husband can’t,” said the first, bolder now but speaking in a hushed voice, his eyes feverish with intent. She appraised them slowly through narrowed eyes, withdrew a cigarette from its packet, placed it between her lips, and lit it. As she blew out the smoke she leaned forward again, placing her elbows on the table.

  “I’m more careful these days,” she said casually. “The last lover I took had his balls chopped off.” The two men blanched. “As I said, my husband is powerful—very powerful. With power comes possessiveness. He likes to keep all that he owns for himself. But I like to take risks. I like the challenge. I like to defy him. It gives me pleasure. Do you understand?”

  They nodded, their mouths agape. Alba was relieved when they got off at the first stop, their throats too dry to bid her farewell.

  When the ticket collector wandered through, she was at her most charming. “I have to confess that I have lost my ticket,” she said, smiling sheepishly. “I’m so sorry and so useless, but that young boy with the twitch,” the ticket collector nodded in recognition as she imitated the way he blinked, “I was so distracted talking to him, he was so dear and I was so dreadfully sorry for him, that when he gave me back my ticket I must have dropped it onto the platform. Of course, I’m more than happy to buy another one.” She began to delve into her handbag, hoping he’d stop her before she had to make up another story about losing her wallet too, which might have stretched his sympathy beyond its limit.

&nb
sp; “Please, signora,” he said kindly. “Michele is a good lad but a little simple. He probably forgot to give it back to you.” Then, in the manner of most men she encountered, he endeavored to take his generosity a step further. “If you have a heavy bag please allow me to help you carry it down from the train.”

  “Thank you,” she said, knowing that if she declined his offer she would dent his pride. “That would be most kind. I do, as it happens, have a heavy bag and, as you can see, I’m not very strong.”

  After lingering for longer than was necessary, the ticket collector wandered off, reassuring Alba that he would return at the end of the line to help her down. Once he had gone, she gazed out the window.

  She thought of Fitz. She blushed as she remembered his kiss. The intimacy of it. It had been like slow dancing after a frenetic round of the twist. It had almost been too much, excruciatingly slow and tender. It had strained every nerve in her body, forced her to feel. To really feel. Not to pretend. It had come so naturally to him, this feeling thing. To her it had been embarrassing, then amusing, and finally almost painful.

  The countryside glimmered in the haze of the late morning sun. Tall cypress trees rose up with the heat and sandy-colored houses sheltered in the shade of pine and cedar. Alba wanted to stick her head out of the window and sniff the air like Sprout did in the back of Fitz’s Volvo. She had imagined these smells all her life. She had seen Italy in films, but nothing could have prepared her for the aching beauty of the country. It was fitting that her mother had come from this earthly heaven, for in Alba’s mind she embodied all those qualities; her spirit moved among the abundant bougainvillea, olive groves, and heavy vines.

  The train screeched to a halt in Sorrento. As he had promised, the ticket collector returned to help Alba with her bag. Eager to please, he wheeled it all the way along the platform and out onto the street, then bade her goodbye. The town was busy. People walked by, their thoughts on themselves, oblivious of the young woman who stood in bewilderment, her stomach now twisting with hunger. The buildings were white, yellow, and red, their shutters closed to keep the rooms cool, the ground-floor windows protected by iron bars, the doors vast, shut, and inhospitable. Although pretty, there was something unwelcoming about the place.

  Finally, the street opened onto the seafront. Boats bobbed up and down on the water or had been dragged up onto the beach. The wet sand was brown like gravel and people ambled up and down the quay, enjoying the sunshine. A couple of restaurants and shops spilled out onto the pavement and the smell of roasting tomatoes and onions wafted on the breeze. She felt her stomach rumble and her mouth salivate. She longed for a glass of water. In her fury she hadn’t thought of stealing a few supplies from the hotel minibar. The more she thought about food and drink, the hungrier and thirstier she became.

  She did not allow herself to wallow in self-pity, as she would have been tempted to do had her will weakened. Self-pity never got anyone anywhere and she despised those weeping women in the movies. She had got this far; with a little charm she could get to Incantellaria. Leaving her bag on the quay, she gathered her courage and marched up to a wizened old fisherman pottering about his boat. As she approached, the smell of fish invaded her nostrils and she was struck by a wave of nausea. “Excuse me,” she said, smiling sweetly. The old man looked up. He didn’t smile. In fact, he looked more than a little irritated to have been disturbed. “I need to get to Incantellaria,” she stated. He looked at her blankly.

  “I can’t take you,” he replied, shaking his head as if she were an annoying fly he wanted to be rid of.

  “Do you know anyone who can?”

  He shrugged unhelpfully, raising the palms of his hands to the sky. “Nanni Baroni will take you,” he said after a moment’s thought.

  “Where can I find him?”

  “He won’t be back until sunset.”

  “But isn’t it just around the bay? Aren’t boats going there all the time?”

  “Why would anyone want to go to Incantellaria?”

  Alba was confused. “Isn’t it a big town, like this one?”

  He laughed cynically. “It’s a small, forgotten little place. It’s asleep. It’s always been asleep. Why would anyone want to go to Incantellaria?” he repeated.

  Alba’s travel agent had specifically said that she should take a boat. She had implied that there were boats leaving all the time, like the trains from Basingstoke to London. Alba muttered crossly under her breath. For a second, she forgot her bearings. She was sure she had left her bag beside the bollard. Perplexed, she looked about her. It was nowhere to be seen. Once again, in the short space of twenty-four hours, she felt the sickening surge of blood to the head, the hot pounding in her ears, the giddy plummeting of her stomach, the anguish, as she realized to her utter disbelief and horror that she had been robbed again. Now she had nothing but her handbag containing lipstick, diary, a rather crumpled Vogue, and, thank God, her passport.

  “Someone has fucking robbed me!” she shouted in English, screaming the words into the heavy afternoon air. She stamped her feet and flung her arms about her head. “Arrrrrrgh! I hate this fucking country. I hate fucking Italians. You’re not a nation, you’re a profession. Thieves. The whole bloody lot of you. Why the fuck did I come? It’s been nothing but a fucking disaster, a fucking waste of time! Arrrrrgh!”

  Suddenly she heard the gentle, patient voice of a man and felt a warm hand on her shoulder. “I’m glad you’re swearing in English,” he said with a smile. “Otherwise they’d lock you up for the afternoon!” She stared at him furiously.

  “I’ve just been robbed,” she fumed, fighting tears. “Someone has just taken my bag. I was robbed of my money in Naples and now my bag in this godforsaken little backwater!”

  “You have obviously never been here before,” he said kindly, turning serious so as not to offend her. “You have to guard your possessions with your life. You’re English?”

  “Yes. In London you can leave the Crown Jewels in the middle of Piccadilly Circus, have lunch, do a bit of shopping in Bond Street, walk around Hyde Park, have tea at the Ritz, a drink at the fucking Connaught, and they’d still be there at six.” It wasn’t strictly true, but it sounded good. “Now I have no money, no clothes!” Her heart sank deeper at the thought of those beautiful clothes now lost. “I need to get to Incantellaria and I can’t find a single bloody person to take me. Nanni bloody Baroni is home shagging his mistress or something and won’t be back until six. What am I supposed to do until six? Mm? I can’t even buy myself a bloody sandwich!”

  “Why on earth do you want to go to Incantellaria?”

  She glared at him, pale gray eyes turning to stone. “If one more person asks me that, I’m going to bloody well thump them!”

  “Look,” he suggested with a smile. “Why don’t you let me buy you lunch, then I’ll take you to Incantellaria myself. I have a boat.”

  “Why should I trust you?”

  “Because you’ve got nothing more to lose,” he replied with a shrug, putting his hand in the small of her back and guiding her to the restaurant.

  Gabriele Ricci explained over a glass of rosé that he lived in Naples but summered on the coast with his family, who had a house there. “I have spent every holiday here since I was a boy but never have I come across a woman as lovely as you.”

  Alba rolled her eyes. “I don’t want to be told I’m beautiful, or lovely. I’ve had you Italians up to here!” she placed her hand on her neck.

  “Don’t Englishmen appreciate women?”

  “They do. Quietly.”

  “Or do those boarding schools they send their sons to encourage them to like boys instead?”

  “Certainly not. Englishmen are gorgeous and respectful.” She thought of Fitz. She would never have gotten herself into such a mess had he had the decency to come with her.

  “You’ve barely set foot in my country and yet you are already cynical.”

  “I’ve been robbed by a handsome Italian just like yo
u. Wherever I go, men try to chat me up. I’m sick of being seen as a sexual thing. I’m sick of being robbed!”

  “At least you’re in one piece,” he said reassuringly.

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  “So how did you get here without any money?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “We’ve got all afternoon.”

  “Well, if you pour me another glass of wine, stop telling me I’m beautiful, and promise not to make a pass at me, rob me, or murder me on the way to Incantellaria, I’ll tell you.”

  He rubbed his chin playfully, considering her conditions. “I can’t deny your beauty, but you are very rude. You swear too much for a lady as well. I won’t rob you because you have nothing left worth robbing. I’m not a murderer. However, I can’t promise never to make a pass at you. I’m Italian!”

  “Oh God!” she sighed melodramatically. “Just allow me to get my strength back so I can decline with force.” Alba would have normally noticed the attractive lines around his mouth when he laughed and his pale green eyes that sparkled with mischief and a warm affability, but she was numb.

  They shared a simple meal in the sunshine and the wine softened her anger and gave her a false sense of optimism. She recounted her adventure, omitting Fatman and his lewd suggestion as well as her night of passion with the stranger she had met at the airport, of which she was now deeply ashamed. Gabriele’s obvious enjoyment encouraged her to elaborate even further until her story grew into a work of fiction of which Vivien Armitage would have been proud.

  Finally, as they sipped glasses of limoncello, he asked her again why she was going to Incantellaria. “Because my mother lived and died there,” she replied. “I never met her, for she died just after I was born. I want to find her family.”