by Diana Athill
But the strangest New Mexican experience was driving along a dead-straight flat-as-a-table road stretching, it seemed, for ever, and suddenly seeing two little gate posts. On reaching them – screech of brakes and, indeed, screech of human voice. Before us was a Void. The ground fell away so abruptly and so far that we were looking down on the backs of swallows who were catching insects above the tiny Rio Grande which had carved out this gigantic gorge. Driving across the narrow bridge which began at the gate posts and spanned its terrifying width, I couldn’t glance down or vertigo would have won.
Our excursion would take us about fifty miles, and then we would have to cross back to our own side of the gorge, presumably by a similar bridge. But the point reached, there were not even gate posts. There was a gorse bush, and then nothing: the road disappeared over the gorge’s rim. And the gorge was just as deep as before.
We got out of the car to peer down in incredulous dismay. Should we turn round and go back to cross by the bridge we’d come over, fifty miles back? But then we heard an approaching vehicle. What eventually appeared below us, clambering beetle-like up the gorge’s wall, was a very ancient little truck. When it reached us, and staggered over the rim onto the flat, we saw its driver was an equally ancient man. At that point we had to say: ‘If he can do it, we can.’
As a matter of fact, the descent was not difficult. The road was wider than we expected, we could hug the side wall of it, averting our eyes from the drop, and we reached the little bridge across the river (not wide at that point) sooner than we expected. It was the ascent that I remember with horror. It was rockier, the road narrower, very forbidding. The rock was so fiercely black and ‘our’ side had become the drop side. If we met another car (and we did twice) we either had to cower against the black wall to the approacher’s fury, or perch sickeningly on the very edge of the black drop. Fear of such an encounter became as nerve-wracking as the event itself. I have never felt more relieved about anything than reaching the top.
But it was very gratifying to be told that evening that ‘not many tourists cross there. Mostly they turn back to the bridge.’ Sissies! I wouldn’t be remembering the look of that little river (it was inconceivable that so small a stream could have carved out that vast gorge, but it had) or those improbable swooping swallows with the clarity I’m now enjoying if we had not pursued that drive to its proper end. Seeing is believing, and we had not just seen, but had driven the hard-to-believe. And terrifying though it was, it was also huge fun – and not a little smug-making. Because what makes good holidays is not lying on beaches and dipping into delicious seas, or drinking good wine and eating well-cooked meals (though some meals will remain memories to be revered). Such things are the jam spread on bread and butter. It is the quality of the whole thing including the bread and butter which makes the experience important. And that is why I remember Port of Spain’s barking dogs, pestilential though they were, almost as fondly as its kiskadees.
I could go on for pages and pages more, but I won’t. Holidays are great and holidays end. So now, back to that first experience of magical ‘elsewhere’ in Florence. Did I ever thank my darling Ma for asking me to record it? I don’t think I did, but I am truly grateful to her: I never would have forgotten it, but I couldn’t have remembered it so well without the diary. May you all have lots of holidays as good as that one.
Bon voyage!
Diana Athill
April 2016
* * *
* In fact I do know. To Venice they are fed in by busloads and each load has to stick together behind its shepherd who keeps it strictly to the main piazza and streets. They are scared to lose touch with their bus – what if they were abandoned? Go five yards down a side street, and you are free of them. In Florence they wander free and uncontrolled – or more nearly so. It makes all the difference. And of course, in Florence, there’s the parking problem, which Venice spares you.
A Florence Diary
SUNDAY, 24 AUGUST 1947
The Golden Arrow left Victoria at eight in the morning, so I had to have all my packing absolutely finished the night before, and order the car to the station, as the chance of a taxi at that hour in the morning on a Sunday was very slim. Pen stayed the night at the station hotel. I arrived early and registered my suitcase through, so that I didn’t have to bother with it at all. I took with me only a hatbox with odds and ends, and a shopping bag with masses of food for the journey. We had seats reserved, second-class, but no sleepers. Pen didn’t register any luggage, and although her stuff was small it was very numerous, and largely tied together with insecure pieces of string. It included a smart white straw hat with blue veil, a collection of canvases, and a vicious easel which poked people in the eye at every move and kept on losing legs.
Victoria to Folkestone was dull, but Folkestone to Boulogne was glorious. The Channel was truly blue for once, and glittering, and there was enough wind to keep us cool but not enough to make us sick. We stayed up in front of the boat, watching for France. It was incredible that anyone should have been seasick, but we know for a fact that at least one person was, because when we reclaimed our luggage we found that they had done it over Pen’s case.
The train to Paris was luxurious – like English first class. There was a funny couple with us, who had a noisy but nice baby of about two. She was Birmingham and he was Bordeaux, and she talked English all the time and he talked French all the time and they understood each other perfectly although neither of them could utter a word of the other’s language. The baby, not unnaturally, was turning out a late speaker.
We crossed from the Gare du Nord to the Gare de Lyons, with great aplomb, by bus. (Pen’s inspiration – I’m better at travelling than she is when it comes to luggage, but she has the greater resourcefulness.) We had four hours in Paris. We ambled about, and dined very pleasantly somewhere near the Jardin des Plantes. We each had about two pounds worth of francs, but after dinner and porters and left luggage and the bus, it was nearly all gone. France is definitely not a place for a holiday now.
The Simplon-Orient-Express left at nine something. It was less luxurious, and full. Some amiable people suddenly took Pen under their wing and decided that by moving a reservation card, they could get her a corner seat in the next carriage, so she went off. I was left with an Italian girl who was busily suckling her three-month-old baby (she was called Mrs Bisset and had been living in Liverpool, but she couldn’t talk any English either), an Italian jeweller with a very peevish sixteen-year-old son, who never spoke or ate for all the journey, a very old and peasanty Italian woman with a sweet and surprisingly well-off daughter, and my Roman prince. I didn’t know he was a prince at that stage. The girl with the baby smelt of sweat and the jeweller smelt of garlic, and I felt that the night would be rather dreadful. It was, as long as one tried to sleep, because sleeping sitting up is such hell, but actually we didn’t try to sleep much. Alfonso (the prince) spoke good English and had just been over in London and Cambridge on a student’s tour. He was extraordinarily nice – corduroy trousers and knapsack – and of an extremely sociable disposition, and had a passion for exercising his English. About twenty-five, I should say, and nice looking in a not particularly Italian way. We reached the frontier by about six, and after all the fuss with the douane (during which a rather odd lady in Pen’s carriage was searched all over and I almost had to pay for my cigarettes only Alfonso quickly explained that I was with him and half of them were his) it was impossible to try to doze any more. So I went and had breakfast with and paid for by Alfonso, and Pen felt rather sad for a short time. Then we had a lovely time watching Switzerland. It was a little misty and not too hot, thank God. When we arrived at Domodossola Pen and I and Alfonso went and had coffee and sponge fingers, and she relented towards him a little. We were terribly dirty by that time.†
Once in Italy the corridors filled up, because they are so short of rolling stock that they have to use the continental expr
esses as local trains. We all bobbed up and down exclaiming with patriotic fervour at all the sights, particularly Lake Maggiore, and when we got to the flat part I went and had lunch with (and on) Alfonso.
At Milan we had an hour or two and we had to go to Cooks because, although we had through tickets, we had not got through reservations. Alfonso took us there. Then we went to have baths in a hotel (Pen’s inspiration), and surprisingly enough, Alfonso didn’t actually bath us. Pen panicked because she thought the train left at five, and got cross with Alfonso again, because he kept on saying, ‘Don’t fuss, it’s five thirty’ (which, of course, it was). I got on to a tram to go back to the station, and the doors shut before they could follow me, and I was swept off and suddenly realised that, not having yet changed a traveller’s cheque, I had not one single lira on me. A kind lady paid my fare amid much laughter. We all joined up safely on the train, and found it packed, but the jeweller had fought tooth and nail and kept our seats free. The old lady and her daughter had been replaced by a fine figure of an elderly man and a little boy who slept so soundly that even when I spilt a bottle of Evian over him he never stirred. The Italian girl’s baby was by this time almost in a stupor, because whenever it stirred she thrust her nipple into its mouth, and in between times she danced it up and down like a mad thing, and everyone poked it all the time. Its dirty nappies were hung on the rack to dry and then used again. The poor girl had brought no food, but everyone did pretty well by her.
Shortly after Milan I had dinner with (and on) Alfonso. Pen came along and joined us after a while, because a certain amount of vino was circulating in her carriage by that time, and the stout gentleman kept inviting her to sit on his knee. When we all went back, he sang her Piedmontese love songs, clasping her hands in both his, and Alfonso discreetly said that he couldn’t translate Piedmontese. Alfonso couldn’t sing, but painstakingly translated to me all the words of all the songs he could remember, and large bits of Dante, too. We were all pretty tired by then, but nothing was going to stop him exercising his English. (We’d discovered his princely extraction at Milan, which was where we first exchanged names. His card was magnificently embossed with crowns, which he quickly scribbled out, blushing. He was called Caracciolo di Forino).
We reached Florence at midnight (forty hours), and dear Alfonso found us a porter and quelled the easel, and told us the black market exchange rate for the last time, and said we must, must come to Rome, and then we parted. The hotel was very near the station, and we flopped into bed. My waste-paper basket overflowed with all the food that had gone bad on the journey, in spite of giving it to people.
TUESDAY, 26 AUGUST 1947
At nine thirty there was a knock on my door, and in came the porter with a monstrous bunch of stephanotis, ‘To wish you a happy stay – Alfonso’. Pen had one too. When we’d got over our surprise we remembered that at Milan he had suddenly said, ‘Excuse me, wait here for two minutes’ and darted down a side street. He must have ordered them from a shop which had a branch in Florence, and made them send off the cards by post at once. What an enchanting race! We are seriously considering going on to Rome!
I had to collect my registered case at the customs during the morning, which involved walking down all the corridors of a sort of barracks at least five times, and paying innumerable officials small fees in exchange for incomprehensible forms. Before that we had changed cheques. Pen vaguely remembered being told that Signor Amico, of via del Campidoglio, gave a good rate of exchange, but she hadn’t got his address. I came over very British and timid suddenly, and said don’t be silly, how can we find him. Undeterred she plunged down the street, saying to one and all, ‘Signor Amico? Signor Amico?’ like the ‘Gilbert, Gilbert’ woman after the Crusades. And sure enough in a restaurant someone said, ‘Ah! Signor D’Amico!’, and leapt up and led us to his door. Actually he only gave us about 500 lire – roughly five shillings – more to the pound than the banks, as the pound, having boomed, is slumping like mad. Still it was something, and rather a triumph.
Then we had to go to the pensione we are going to after three days in this hotel, and see that all was well there. To our enormous joy we found that it is on the Arno, and our rooms look half over the river and half over a lovely bosky garden, and that it is charming in every way. It costs about 12s 6d a day with all meals!
Then we lunched in a smart restaurant for the hell of it, and then we went to the Palazzo Pitti and looked at the most glorious collection of pictures imaginable until we were so exhausted that we could do no more (we hadn’t quite revived from the journey) and after that we got a permesso for the Boboli Gardens and meant to rest in them, only we were continually led on by new and wonderful vistas.
We had dinner outside – a less smart restaurant, but good, and a violinist and guitarist came out and played to us all the time because we tipped them much too much. A beggar woman came along who was training her child, of about three. She pushed it up to us, and then the idea was that she said to it, ‘Come away. Don’t annoy the ladies,’ whereupon it had to begin to cry and cling to us, thereby winning our hearts. The poor little thing wasn’t very good at it yet. We felt beastly not giving anything, but kept remembering all we’d heard about being firm with Italian beggars. There aren’t a great many now. Food is expensive, though, and I’m afraid there is a big gap between rich and poor – but of course, there always was.
The shops have heavenly things in them – fairly cheap compared to England, but not very. The recovery is astonishing. There didn’t seem to be a bombed building in Milan upon which they weren’t working, and they had got it back much nearer to normal than London. Everyone seems pleased to see English people, and very kind and charming. Even the touts aren’t a nuisance. We have discovered the technique. If you are British and haughty they go on at you, but if you smile very courteously and say, ‘Grazie, grazie’ they stop at once, all smiles, and let you go on.
We went to bed early.
WEDNESDAY, 27 AUGUST 1947
We were late this morning, owing to Pen washing her hair and us both having baths (cold – they have no coal, and a very hot summer has dried up the water supply for electricity. That is their worst trouble now, I think).
I went to Cooks and learnt the hideous news that one can’t reserve seats on the return journey. They say first class is not much more expensive, so if I have enough money left I shall go by it. Pen is staying longer. One pays on the train, first in lire then in Swiss francs, then in French francs. Tedious.
Then we wandered, mostly looking at the Palazzo Vecchio. Everything is so beautiful that even not ‘doing’ anything special is marvellous. We are now eating at the pensione (we move in tomorrow) and had a good lunch there.
We then went to the Accademia di Belle Arti and saw wonderful Michelangelo sculptures and an astounding collection of primitives and two dream-like Botticellis, and a special exhibition of pictures that were wrecked in the war and which they are restoring, with photos of all the different stages. They are working miracles on them. Things that were blistered fragments are made almost whole again. Such skill and patience is almost unbelievable.
Then a most splendid tea, with ices and sponge fingers and little iced cakes that melted in the mouth – one of the things we do saying, ‘Just this once’.
After that a church – Santa Maria Novella – which had lovely frescos, but badly lit and so dirty that one cannot see the detail at all. There was a lovely conjuror outside, swallowing a sword and doing a very rude trick with a little funnel.
After dinner at the pensione we sat on its loggia, which is high up, and looked over the Arno by moonlight. Oh so lovely.
It is being deliciously cool, so that one is just exactly comfortable in a cotton frock. Everyone says, ‘What a shame it can’t be more sunny’, but it is a good thing really. I bought a sun hat in a market this morning simply because I couldn’t resist it, but it isn’t necessary at the moment. It is huge and rat
her floppy and striped round and round, dark red and straw coloured.
This hotel (Bonciani) isn’t at all bad – big and rambling – but it’s not as lovely as the pensione, and it will be fun to get there. Madame Rigatti, who runs it, is young and very pretty and speaks English, and adores Pen’s friend who recommended us. Leaving the hotel will be expensive in tips – there are so many different servants. Two different liftmen, both of whom are our special friends, a bath lady, and chambermaid, an old man pushing a mop who fetched the vases for our flowers, a waiter, a boy pushing another mop and a cross porter and a nice night porter. We can only hope that they won’t all be there. I bet the cross porter is. He rather despises us because he saw our passports which have written in them how much (or how little) money we have got.
