That Summer in Ischia

by Penny Feeny

  ‘Certo.’ He beckoned her on board.

  Allie hesitated. Wasn’t this a little too easy? She’d strolled off the boat, over the road and into a bar, and chosen a bus at random. There were others, nosing off in different directions. She wondered how the villa could be so well known. Perhaps he hadn’t understood her. ‘You go to the Casa Colonnata?’ she repeated. ‘This is the right bus to take me there?’

  He nodded again. She had to move forward because the doors were hissing shut. It didn’t occur to her, until she’d swayed into a seat with her backpack caught awkwardly between her knees, that there might be more than one villa with that name. Or a boutique hotel? Still, it wasn’t such a large island; at worst, she would have to sit out the journey and ride back to the port again. Once beyond the town, the bus laboured up a winding road. Some of the bends were so sharp it was amazing its tail didn’t swing off the edge. Drivers hurtled downwards with their hands on their horns. Occasionally a camper van straddled both lanes and forced them to a crawl. The passengers sat and gossiped. Every now and again the affable driver would stop at some apparently arbitrary point and let one or two of them off at the verge. Allie relaxed and turned her attention to the landscape. Everything would be fine.

  They passed terraced vineyards and olive groves, torrents of rambling roses and incongruously planted billboards. Sometimes she caught glimpses of the sea below, a marvellous intense blue. A roadside stall offered slices of pink watermelon and baskets of white eggs. At a shrine to the Madonna, plastic lilies mingled with fresh carnations, their petals crisping at the edges in the growing heat. The bus lurched around another corner and the driver jerked his head in her direction and called, ‘Casa Colonnata.’

  Allie stood and peered out. She could see a development of several villas, white cubes and rectangles slipping down the hill. ‘Is it one of these?’ she asked the driver as he pulled over. ‘How will I find it?’

  He shrugged, not understanding, and repeated himself.

  She thanked him and descended because there was nothing else she could do. Other people followed her, began to walk off along the paths that linked the villas. She accosted a woman humping a bag nearly as heavy as her own, containing cleaning products and equipment. ‘Excuse me,’ she began. ‘I’m looking for a place called Casa Colonnata. Do you know it?’

  The woman looked surprised and extended her arm. ‘È tutta la zona.’

  ‘But that’s impossible. They can’t . . .’

  Allie was surrounded by a maze of buildings which not only looked identical with their white stucco walls and pots of geraniums, but had the same name too. How did anyone find their way home? Eventually, Allie deduced the name applied to the whole estate. She was probably in the wrong spot entirely. This was why she shouldn’t have travelled by herself: she had no one to bounce ideas off, no one else to blame for stupid mistakes.

  She took out her phone and switched it on, half-expecting an aggrieved text from Dom. None came. He probably thought it would cost too much. And if she rang Liddy now for further directions, wouldn’t that cost a fortune too? Anyway, she wouldn’t be able to help. She had talked of chestnut forests and rocky cliff-side tracks, of the small shop and bar serving scattered habitations. Over decades a place was bound to change. It was possible that the old villas had been demolished and built over with all these new holiday homes.

  It was a weekday, not yet the height of the season. A few of the villas showed signs of occupation: chairs pushed back from a table beneath a loggia, a parked car beginning to sizzle, freshly watered hanging baskets – but many had their shutters sealed and their ornamental fountains switched off. The cleaning woman and the other passengers had dispersed. A ginger cat lay under a bush buffing its whiskers.

  Allie calculated that she was on the outer edges of the development, that if she struck seawards, she might yet find what she was looking for. Eventually the villas became more spacious and set further apart; some had swimming pools. A tree drooped apricots over a gateway, but she wasn’t sure if the fruit were ripe. In any case, she was more tired than hungry: she should have checked into a room, rested and come out later.

  She rubbed perspiration from her face, shaded her eyes and looked ahead. Here the roadway branched and took on a different tenor: older, grittier, the trees more mature. A long driveway dropped to her right, the gates latched but not locked, the gateposts topped with carved pineapples – just as Liddy had described. ‘You’ll come to the Baldini villa first,’ she’d told her. ‘It was very glitzy in its day.’ Glitzy was not the word Allie would have used. It looked dated, the stucco discoloured, but it was heavily muffled with lush creepers which gave it a romantic air. Her spirits lifted; she carried on.

  Until she met Liddy she’d assumed that Rome had been the arena of her mother’s tribulations. She’d swallowed the story of the naïve student, the drugs bust, the rubbish boyfriend because the focus had always been on her own condition – the effort and willpower needed to overcome it. But now there was a new dimension – a whole new location, in fact – and she was standing in front of it: the Verducci villa, the original Casa Colonnata. It wasn’t quite as she imagined. For a start, it wasn’t as grand as Liddy had suggested. Allie had pictured a Palladian-style temple topped with a dome, like the White House. Instead, the roof was flat and the columns were more like slender poles, wound about with sweet jasmine. Tall electronic gates barred entry, although there was a bell she could ring and an intercom to speak into. Did she really want to confront the owner? She’d rehearsed all kinds of excuses in her head but they sounded far-fetched and unconvincing. Besides, the door would probably be answered by a housekeeper who, like the woman on the bus, didn’t speak any English.

  Anyway, she’d seen the villa and it was just a nice holiday home with a spectacular view. Without the view it would be nothing special. Like any other dwelling, it would be a repository of memories only for those who had spent time there (or who had – possibly – been conceived in one of the rooms overlooking the sea). She turned to leave and noticed an American-style mailbox beside the gates. Discreetly, she opened it. Her hand settled on an envelope and drew it out. The name wasn’t Verducci. Well, didn’t that answer her question? Somebody else had bought the place and was spending enough of the year there to receive post. She returned the letter to the mailbox and set off back to the bus-stop. She’d find somewhere to stay, wash and brush up. She could do with a drink first though, something to eat too. Maybe those apricots would turn out to be ripe after all . . .

  She didn’t reach the apricots. Approaching the Baldini villa from a different angle, she spotted a car parked under a tree. Allie wasn’t much good at identifying trees. Or cars, since she didn’t drive, but this one had a Fiat Punto logo and a Naples number plate. It didn’t look anything special, not like a Maserati or a Porsche or the type of flamboyant sports car she would have expected of one of Liddy’s Baldinis. No doubt that family had moved on, too.

  She could see a figure beyond the Fiat, unravelling a hosepipe. A young man was dragging it to a raised area away from the house. Keeping as close as she could to a hedge of oleander, Allie took a parallel route. Peeking through a gap in the narrow leaves, she glimpsed a swimming pool, bordered with mosaic tiles and half a dozen inviting sun loungers. She’d spent the past ten days in cities, amid crowds and tall buildings which, however historic, had pressed in on her until she’d sensed a physical constriction in her chest. And here, within a few yards, was the most delightful empty pool. She imagined submerging herself, washing away the grime and the altercations and the setbacks. She was a strong swimmer. Swimming lessons had begun early as part of her treatment. She had no fear of waves or cold temperatures and often braved the Atlantic or the North Sea in conditions which would chill the less intrepid. Battling the elements was an invigorating exercise; leaping into this pool would be a wonderful indulgence.

  The maintenance man was hosing down the tiles, topping up the water level. He was wearing ripped jeans
and flip-flops, no T-shirt. As he ambled around the perimeter to turn off the tap and coil up the hose, he passed near enough for her to see the dirt on his heels. She was dirty herself: no chance to shower this morning and too much tramping about in the sun. She held her breath. When he finished and crossed the drive towards his car she sneaked further along the hedge in the opposite direction to make sure she wasn’t visible. She curled herself like a cat in what was more or less a ditch and kept her head down. There came the tinny slam of a car door, the stutter of an engine; she heard him drive away.

  Emerging from the bushes she found herself at the far end of the pool, beside the shower. It rose on a tall stalk like a sunflower, ready for bathers to rinse themselves before they plunged in. She eased off the backpack which had begun to chafe her flesh, leaving a nasty weal, and perched on the nearest sun lounger. It was so tempting: the prospect of lovely cool water sluicing her face, pattering down her front. She needed something to revive her, to stop the heat overwhelming her, sealing her eyelids, confusing her brain. She would lie down for a moment and consider the risks.

  If asked she’d have said she’d dozed for about five or ten minutes, but sleep had overtaken her so rapidly she lost all sense of time. In any case she couldn’t see how far the sun had moved because it was obstructed by a tall silhouette.

  The silhouette shrank to her level and said in bemusement: ‘What the fuck?’

  16

  If you woke to find yourself in paradise, thought Allie, it might be like this. She was floating on her back, wearing the swimsuit that had been squashed beneath everything else since Nice. When she kicked out, a rainbow of droplets poised, crystalline, in the air. Changing ends, she couldn’t make up her mind which aspect she preferred: one gave her a backdrop of roses, their honeyed petals quivering in a heat haze; the other a viridian line of evergreens against the immensity of the sky. Folded in readiness on one of the chairs was a sherbet lemon towel, much more luxurious than the scrappy old thing she’d brought with her.

  Max was fetching the drinks. ‘Chilled beer,’ he called across the veranda. ‘Good for you, yeah?’

  ‘Perfect for me,’ Allie said. If she dipped her forehead backwards into the water, she could see him receding into the villa, albeit upside down. She thought briefly of Jess and Nita stuck on a rackety Slovenian train with unyielding seats and no air-conditioning. She thought, even more briefly, of Dom and Meg trundling the well-worn thoroughfares of Pompeii, navigating coach parties and tour guides, trying to imagine being swamped in a torrent of molten lava, and felt a moment of pity. She’d lucked out, hadn’t she? Who would have thought it? She rolled on to her front and plunged into the deeper end of the pool, aware of the pressure in her ears and lungs, but enjoying it for the sense of release when she burst upwards again, her hair slick against her skull, her eyes taking a second or two to focus – once more – on paradise.

  Max was carrying an open bottle of Peroni in each hand. He stooped to offer her one.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll get out now. Boy, that was terrific.’ She beamed as she hauled herself up the aluminium steps and wrapped herself in the thick towel. She was a little dizzy from the sudden onslaught of air in her system and the astonishing good luck of her situation.

  Max had declined to go in. ‘Reckon I need to eat first. Swimming on an empty stomach is as bad for you as swimming on a full one.’

  ‘So’s drinking,’ said Allie, tipping back her bottle. Rivulets of water were running down her neck. She draped the towel over her left shoulder, disguising her arm in its folds.

  ‘Shall we go rummage around the kitchen, see what we can find?’

  ‘Sure.’ She’d agree to anything he suggested. ‘Should I get dressed first?’

  ‘Up to you.’

  ‘Then I won’t.’ He was half-naked too: the faded jeans slung low on his hips. ‘Plus I am truly starving.’

  She followed him through the side entrance into the kitchen. In the middle of the table a paper bag spilled panini. Allie picked one up and took a bite. Max rooted around in the fridge. ‘I went out for the bread and the beer,’ he said, ‘but I forgot to check whether there was any, like, real food.’ He produced a length of salami and dangled it from its string before her nose. ‘You are sleepy,’ he said in an exaggerated accent. ‘You are vairy vairy sleepy . . .’

  ‘Piss off!’

  He lobbed the salami into the air. ‘Catch.’

  By sheer fluke of timing she reached up at the right moment and it sailed into her hand. Max produced plates, knives, plum tomatoes, and opened a jar of artichoke hearts. He recaptured the salami and started slicing it.

  ‘Can we eat outside?’ she said. ‘You know, like a picnic?’

  ‘Sure. Grab a couple more beers and I’ll bring the plates.’

  At the table on the terrace, sunlight threaded through the vine leaves; a few metres away came the faint slap and suck of the water against the pool filters. Inside the villa, perhaps because of the gloom and the silence, Allie had felt uneasy; here she was more comfortable. In any case the silence was now broken. Max had slotted The Strokes’ Is This It into a CD player.

  ‘Have you really met them?’ asked Allie. ‘I mean, like more than once? Properly?’

  ‘That’s such a British word, isn’t it? Proper. Properly.’

  ‘You haven’t been winding me up?’

  ‘We have some friends in common, been to some of the same parties. You’re a fan?’

  She wiped a dribble of olive oil from her lip. ‘I think they’re amazing. Truly. I mean, they’ve, like, woken up the whole scene, given us such a charge –’

  ‘Us? Who’s us?’

  ‘Oh well . . .’ She began to explain. About the three years she and Sam had spent assembling the band, the difficulty of finding time to rehearse when they were supposed to be studying for their finals, the thrill of getting bookings for those early student gigs, the pleasure of creating a song together. Part of her was excited to be talking about music again – tempered by a nagging awareness, like toothache, that she was now one stage removed from the creative process. But he was listening, really listening.

  ‘Let me get this straight.’ He tipped his head sideways. His dark curls reminded her of The Strokes’ drummer, Fab Moretti. (She always paid particular attention to drummers – somebody had to.) Sam had limp silky hair, the colour of the Golden Virginia he smoked. ‘Are you saying you’re, like, the new Meg White?’

  She picked up a tomato and rolled it around her palm. ‘I’m not claiming anything. I can’t, I’ve been made redundant. Some people might think a girl drummer’s a big deal but basically you’re background. The main egos are strutting out front.’

  ‘Hey, don’t put yourself down.’

  ‘Well, it’s the English malaise. Don’t aim too high, then you won’t get knocked back. You won’t be able to do everything you want in this life so don’t even try. It’s different if you’re American.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m Italian.’

  ‘Sorry, my mistake.’ She rolled the tomato across the table towards him and his hand closed over it instantly. You could call it harmony, she thought, and wondered what he’d be like to jam with. He’d told her he could strum a guitar a bit. ‘I’ve a mind like a sieve at the moment. Besides, you do such a great impression of a New Yorker.’

  He grinned. ‘Maybe that’s because I am a New Yorker. Did you want another beer yet?’

  The alcohol had already induced a state of enjoyable torpor; she felt warm and weightless as if she were still buoyed up by water. She twisted a drying strand of hair around her finger and closed her eyes. ‘Mmm, that’d be great.’ The empty bottles clinked as he swept them into his hand. She sat upright. ‘Hell, that was rude! Sounded like I expected you to wait on me or something. Let me get them. They’re in the fridge, right?’ She grasped the empties and shoved his shoulder gently so that he sank back into his chair. He had the kind of skin you wanted to touch, firm and taut with the sheen of r
ichly polished walnut – and the kind of bearing that made pushing him down a satisfying thing to do. He was so obviously (like The Strokes) from a moneyed background. Even the ripped (designer) jeans were an amazing fit; the flip-flops were Havianas. How on earth could she have thought he was the pool maintenance man?

  She padded back into the villa. She needed the loo and wandered the hallway, furtively peeking through doors, trying to guess which had been Liddy’s room. There were mirrors everywhere and she kept being startled by her own reflection. It was hard to believe that she had gained entrance to this place so easily. She was staggered by her own brazenness.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he’d said, and she hadn’t even wondered why he’d addressed her in English.

  ‘I’m Allie. Allegra.’

  ‘Oh.’ He’d waited while she unwound herself. ‘I wasn’t expecting anyone to arrive so early.’

  ‘You weren’t?’

  ‘No. And heck, I’m sure I would’ve remembered if he said a British girl was coming.’

  ‘How d’you know I’m British?’

  ‘The accent?’ He considered. ‘And the skirt. No other girls wear skirts that short.’

  She stood up and tugged it down. He had risen too. ‘Who said? Who are you talking about?’

  ‘Bobo. You are a friend of his, aren’t you?’

  ‘Do you mean Bobo Baldini?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Wow, thought Allie. He really exists. The toddler who’d so frustrated Liddy was now a grown man, coming back to the family house for the summer. Weird.