A Dead Man in Naples

by Michael Pearce

  ‘And these boys were so nice, so young and fresh. So idealistic. They wanted good things for their country. That’s what they used to talk about, you know. What Italy needed, what way it should go. They were so patriotic – which, sadly, you don’t always find in the young these days.

  ‘And well behaved. Perfect manners, they all had perfect manners. Which, again, you don’t always find in young men these days.

  ‘And religious, too. Catholic, of course. Well, you would expect that in Italy. I was a little worried at first that Lionel might – well, he was always such a one for enthusiasms – might be drawn in that direction. Fortunately he held firm! Our family has always been good C. of E. Except on the Scottish side, where we are people of the manse. But I thought it was a good sign that they were religious. It showed that they were thinking people, people of a certain depth.’

  She laughed. ‘And they did take that side seriously, you know. They even gave themselves a religious name, the Club, that is.’

  ‘Sursum Corda?’ suggested Seymour.

  ‘Why, yes!’ said Miss Scampion, surprised. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Someone mentioned the name to me.’

  ‘Of course, it is well known, I gather. Although I had not come across it myself until we arrived in Florence. And suddenly everyone seemed to be talking about it. Among Lionel’s friends, at least. And they seemed such a nice, respectable group for him to have fallen in with.

  ‘But then That Woman came along!’

  ‘The Marchesa?’

  ‘So-called. Yes. And she led them astray. She was the Serpent, Mr Seymour: the Serpent in Eden, for so Florence seemed to me. A veritable Paradise. And she spoiled it.’

  ‘How – how exactly did she spoil it, Miss Scampion?’

  ‘She turned their heads. As soon as she appeared, they all clustered round her. And made themselves silly. She was like a bright butterfly and they all tried to catch her. But what was worse, Mr Seymour, was that it wasn’t just their eyes that men turned, it was their minds. She diverted them away from all those noble things they had been discussing and directed them into Frivolous Pursuits!’

  ‘Frivolous Pursuits?’

  ‘Dancing, partying, wildnesses of all kinds!’

  ‘Good heavens!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Miss Scampion, pleased with the effect she had produced. ‘You understand so well!’

  ‘And Lionel . . .?’

  ‘Lost his head, too, I am afraid.’

  Miss Scampion walked on beside them, pushing her bicycle.

  ‘Can I assist you, Miss Scampion? The street is rather crowded at this point.’

  ‘Thank you – it is a little unwieldy. At close quarters, that is. Do you ride, Miss de Lissac?’

  ‘Well, no, I’m afraid.’

  ‘You’re used to horses, I expect. Military families are good with horses. They have to be. The men, I mean. But often the women are, too. They grow up with horses. I had rather hoped, when I was a girl and we used to go and stay with my uncle – the army one, you know – that he would keep ponies. But he said that they ate you out of house and home. And drink, too, which was much more important. So I never really rode myself.

  ‘I did once, just before we moved to Florence, suggest to Lionel that he bought a horse. It would look so dashing, you know. I really feel he would have looked well on horseback. Better than on a bicycle. More, sort of, imposing! But he took the same view as Uncle and said that we couldn’t afford it. And instead, when we got to Florence, he went for a bicycle.

  ‘I was cross at first. But afterwards I was so glad! For if he had done what I suggested, and gone for a horse, it would have been disastrous!’

  ‘Disastrous, Miss Scampion?’

  ‘Yes. Because, you see, That Woman rode a horse. Every Saturday morning. I am sure she did it deliberately, because that was when the men did their practising on their bicycles, and she wished to lure them away. But she did not succeed. They stayed true to their bicycles.

  ‘Except – and this was unfortunate – for D’Annunzio. She succeeded in luring him. Well, of course, that was quite understandable for he was a keen equestrian. But I felt it was unfortunate, for he had such an influence on others. And particularly on those fine young men. They hung upon his words. He fired them – fired them with enthusiasm for Italy and for all those great ideals they discussed at their meetings. When Lionel came home and told me what D’Annunzio had been saying I couldn’t help weeping with emotion.

  ‘So it could have been disastrous when that evil woman succeeded in luring him away and they went riding together. They all – all those fine young men, Lionel, too – might have followed him. But they stayed true – true to their bicycles.

  ‘And that, I think, was Lionel’s saving.’

  Chapter Seven

  Every day Seymour had made a point of dropping in at the small restaurant behind the Porta del Carmine and by now he had become quite well known there. The owner did not even wait to be told but placed a bowl of snail soup before him at the table. Seymour had been tempted by the fish soup, the Zuppa alla Marinar, which he had seen at other street restaurants, but the owner did not serve any.

  ‘Snails,’ he said, ‘are my business.’

  ‘And quite right, too!’ said Seymour’s previous acquaintance, the Smorfia-reading carpenter, looking up from his bowl. ‘Your snails, Ernesto, are exquisite.’

  ‘I do my best,’ said the restaurant owner modestly.

  He did not, in fact, own very much, just the big pot of oil simmering on the fire he had built in the street, the table and chairs, which he had probably borrowed, and, of course, his raw materials, contained in a tank-like box.

  ‘Where they can keep fresh,’ he explained. ‘That’s the thing about my snails. They’re freshly gathered every day – I’m up on the slopes first thing in the morning – and if they’re kept like this they stay fresh.’

  ‘And it shows!’ said the carpenter.

  Various other bystanders nodded in agreement.

  The vendor of snails did not even bring his own water. He relied on an acquaiolo further up the street, who was quite prepared to explain the virtues of his own product.

  ‘All the water,’ he said, ‘comes from the spring at Santa Lucia. I go there every day to get it. One day, perhaps, I will lay a pipe to my stall –’

  ‘Dream on, Alberto!’ said the carpenter.

  ‘You scoff,’ said the acquaiolo, ‘but the day approaches.’

  ‘But will it taste the same?’ asked the snail-shop owner anxiously. ‘When it’s been through the pipe?’

  ‘That remains to be seen,’ acknowledged the acquaiolo.

  ‘I would have to taste it first,’ said the restaurant owner, ‘before I used it for my snails.’

  ‘And so you shall,’ promised the acquaiolo. ‘And if it is not as good, I will bring you the water myself as I do at present.’

  ‘Thank you, Alberto. It makes all the difference, you see. The water has a sulphur taste, which brings out the best in the snails.’

  ‘I think the water has been changing,’ said the carpenter.

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘Just a little,’ insisted the carpenter, who was evidently something of a connoisseur.

  ‘You really think so?’ said the restaurant owner, worried.

  ‘Just a little. A very little.’

  ‘It’s all the water that’s being drawn off,’ said Ernesto. ‘It means the water has to come from deeper.’

  ‘That could be it!’ said the carpenter.

  ‘Of course, you could argue that it makes it fresher,’ said the acquaiolo.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Seymour, ‘the product speaks for itself.’

  ‘That’s specialization for you,’ said the carpenter. ‘And that’s why I say Ernesto should stick to his snails.’

  ‘Until I win the lottery!’ said Ernesto, smiling.

  ‘Until he wins the lottery!’ said the carpenter, sighing. ‘That will be a while yet!’
>
  ‘How have you been doing lately?’ asked Seymour.

  ‘Badly! I do all the right things and I’ve had some good numbers. But somehow they don’t come to anything.’

  ‘Me, too!’ said Seymour.

  ‘You tried that number we worked out?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘And . . .?’

  ‘It was close. It was close. But not close enough. I was two numbers out.’

  ‘That is close!’ said the acquaiolo. ‘Are you sure you did it right? Maybe we made a little mistake. Because that was a good number, and the fact that it was so close . . . Look, let’s go through it again. If there was just a little mistake, maybe you could put it right next time.’

  He pulled the Smorfia towards him. ‘Now, what was it?’

  ‘A man,’ said Seymour. ‘Here, at the Porta Carmine. Murdered.’

  ‘15, 13 and 27.’

  ‘That’s what I tried.’

  ‘Really?’ said the carpenter, disappointed and a little surprised.

  ‘You mean that Englishman?’ said the acquaiolo.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That was a good idea! And it didn’t win?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Funny.’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t particular enough,’ said Seymour.

  ‘Man, you mean? Maybe you should have specified Englishman.’

  ‘Can I do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Let’s have a look. No, I don’t think you can. But you could have tried “foreigner”.’

  ‘That could be it!’ said the acquaiolo.

  ‘Well, could it?’ asked Seymour. ‘It still doesn’t seem specific enough to me. Maybe there is something else we should put in?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ confessed Seymour. ‘I just feel –’

  ‘You should trust your feelings,’ said the acquaiolo.

  ‘But refine them,’ said the carpenter. ‘Sort of narrow them down. Go on thinking.’

  ‘I will,’ promised Seymour. ‘And you, too.’

  ‘I will,’ said the carpenter.

  He looked at his watch, and then jumped up.

  ‘Christ!’ he said. ‘I ought to have been back ten minutes ago. My wife will be up here at any moment.’

  He rushed away.

  ‘That was a good idea,’ said the acquaiolo. ‘A really good idea. I should have thought of that! I was here when it happened, you know.’

  ‘You were? When the Englishman was killed?’

  ‘Yes. I was right behind him. At least, the other side of the pillar. I was just bringing some water from the spring. I’d got through a lot that day, I don’t know why. Oh, yes, I do: some drovers had come up, and they had all wanted a drink. It was very hot that day. Anyway, I was carrying the water, and I stopped for a moment. Behind the Porta. The bags get quite heavy after a while. I had put them down and was just going to pick them up again when I heard a clatter. That was the bicycle falling over. And then the Englishman fell after it. I went to help him up. And then, Christ, I saw the blood. And froze.’

  ‘Blood?’

  ‘Yes. Coming from his neck. So I knew what had happened. And that it was best to keep out of it.’

  ‘You were as close as that?’

  ‘As close as I am to you.’

  ‘But you must have seen –’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I must have been looking down at that moment to pick up the bags. I was conscious of someone brushing past me and then he was gone. Up the street, I suppose. Into one of the bassi.’

  ‘Christ!’ said Seymour.

  ‘Yes,’ said the acquaiolo.

  ‘And you didn’t see . . . the one who had done it?’

  ‘No. Not at all. But I’d seen enough to know I’d better keep out of it. Recognized the handiwork, you might say.’

  ‘Recognized the . . .?’

  ‘Knew it at once.’

  The acquaiolo looked around cautiously and lowered his voice.

  ‘Them,’ he said.

  Chantale had strayed into a back street where all the shops were fruit-sellers. They announced that by hanging garlands of fruit leaves and bunches of grapes over their windows. Most of them had counters outside and these, too, were decorated with leaves and fruit, sometimes by whole branches. The owners stood beside their counters calling to pedestrians as they passed. Chantale had no occasion to buy fruit but she amused herself by listening to the fruit-sellers’ calls and trying, with her imperfect Italian, to translate them.

  ‘Eat, drink, and wash your face in them.’ These were watermelons, which were also ‘redder than the fire of Vesuvius’.

  ‘No passengers!’ was another favourite cry. ‘If you don’t believe, bite one!’ Eventually she worked out that this meant ‘No worms!’

  ‘There’s cinnamon inside!’ This, for some reason, referred to apricots. ‘Gold, not grapes!’ was easy. But ‘Ladies’ thighs!’ was more difficult. ‘Ladies’ thighs! We adore them!’ the street sellers called out. It took some time before Chantale realized that they were talking about pears.

  Outside one of the shops she saw the Arab woman, Jalila, trying to effect her purchases with a squirming boy in one arm and the other hand holding her little girl. The little girl detached herself and ran up to Chantale. Jalila spun round after her.

  ‘Hello, Atiya!’ said Chantale.

  ‘Signora!’ said the little girl, and put her hand in Chantale’s.

  ‘Do you mind, Signora?’ said Jalila anxiously.

  ‘Not at all. I’ll hold her while you get on with your shopping.’

  ‘I’m buying some tomatoes for Maria,’ said Jalila. ‘I shan’t be a moment.’

  She put the tomatoes in the basket at her feet and picked it up. That seemed still to require an extra hand.

  ‘Atiya can walk along with me,’ said Chantale.

  Jalila smiled her thanks.

  ‘He is tired,’ she said, indicating the boy in her arm, ‘and insists on being carried.’

  ‘He ought to walk,’ said Atiya sternly.

  ‘But he is very little still,’ said Chantale.

  They walked along the street together.

  ‘I saw you yesterday,’ said Chantale. ‘With the letter-writer. Were you sending a letter back to your family?’

  She had a half-hearted idea that she might offer her services.

  Jalila looked startled.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I can do that myself. It’s the letters in Italian that I find difficult.’

  ‘You seem to speak Italian very well,’ said Chantale, ‘but I know writing is more difficult.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Jalila seriously, ‘because it has to be just so. Especially when you are writing to someone Exalted.’

  She was speaking in Arabic and ‘Exalted’ didn’t seem quite right for an Italian context.

  ‘Not that the letter-writer was much good,’ she added tartly.

  ‘And has the pension come through yet?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Jalila. ‘They promise it for tomorrow. But things are always “tomorrow” here. There is some hope, though, Giuseppi tells me, that this time it will be different.’

  ‘I hope so,’ said Chantale.

  ‘I should be all right,’ said Jalila, ‘provided it comes through soon. Someone has given me some money, which will cover the next day or two.’

  ‘That must be a relief!’ said Chantale.

  ‘Yes. I don’t know who it’s from. Maria wouldn’t tell me.’ She hesitated. ‘But I think I can guess,’ she said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes.’ She hesitated again. ‘There’s a man. A friend of Tonio’s. Not a relative, just a friend. I don’t know whether I should take it. If it was from a relative, of course I would take it. That would be family. But a friend – I don’t know.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I don’t know. Would it be proper?’ she appealed.

  ‘If it comes through Maria,’ said Chantale, ‘it would surely be proper.’
/>
  ‘Yes, that’s what I thought. But I have been wondering about it since. You see, if it comes from this man, the one I told you of, Tonio’s friend, then – well, it is a bit more complicated. They were close, you see, this man and Tonio. Very close. And he feels that with Tonio gone, and with his family being as old, and frail, as they are, he should take on some of their obligations.’

  ‘Well, that is very nice of him.’

  ‘Yes, it is. But how far should it go? How far should I let him?’

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said, with a rush: ‘He wants to marry me.’

  ‘Well, that is good. If you want to marry him.’

  ‘Well, that is good.

  ‘He is very nice.’

  ‘Well, then –’

  ‘And good. He is a good man.’

  ‘In that case –’

  ‘But . . .’ said Jalila.

  ‘You don’t want to marry him?’

  ‘I am not sure.’

  Chantale knew the feeling.

  ‘He says it is proper. In Naples. For a relative, when a man dies, to take on his responsibilities. To marry his widow and provide for her. It is the way that the family takes responsibility for her. And if there isn’t a suitable relative, he says, it is not uncommon for the man’s best friend to step in.’

  She looked at Chantale. ‘It is like that among us, too. As you know. The dead man’s brother, or cousin if there is no brother, takes over. Of course, sometimes there is a difficulty. He may not want to, or she may not want to. But usually –’

  She broke off.

  ‘But I have always felt,’ she resumed, after a moment, ‘that it is much to ask. And I made up my mind that if it ever came to me, I would not do it. If the brother were unwilling, would it not breed disharmony? And all the more so if it were not a brother but a friend. And, besides –’

  She stopped again.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘There is more to it than that. More than marrying just so as to carry on in the old way. At least, there was in my case. When I married I felt I had come to a crossroads. One of the roads was for things to stay as they were. That would be normal in a marriage. But by marrying Tonio I knew that I would not be able to go down that road. He was a foreigner and things could not be the same. And then he said that he would take me to Italy and I knew that if he did that then things would certainly never be the same again.