by Penny Feeny
‘Indirizzo?’ said the officer at the computer screen, his fingers suspended over the keyboard. ‘Address in Ischia?’
‘I don’t have one,’ said Allie.
He said it again, patiently. ‘Where do you stay?’
‘I only just arrived. I need to find a hotel.’
The men looked at each other. There were five of them surrounding her now, all on her case. Ischia wasn’t like Nice, a city that heaved with foolish tourists and sly pickpockets: it was old-fashioned and overlooked, always playing second fiddle to Capri, its more glamorous neighbour. Nevertheless, it suffered the same problems as the rest of the continent: poverty, unemployment, bored teenagers, drugs. Her assailant was a drug addict, they decided, probably come over from Naples to prey on the tourists. Truth to tell, she was lucky to be alive. Unmolested. They did their best to clean up the streets, make arrests. Droghe! Where would it all end?
Allie was wary of giving them too much information. She’d already been found in possession of a stolen whistle and although this had become a joke and the cause of much banter, Helena’s experience hung over her like a warning.
‘You are just now arrived? You come for day trip? You have address in Naples, forse?’
‘I – I don’t remember it. Anyway, I checked out.’
She couldn’t let them put her on the ferry, even if it sailed this late, which she doubted. She needed her stuff. She’d have to collect it tomorrow from the Baldini villa, but she couldn’t spend another night there. Nor could she seek Bobby out at the club: in such a state she wouldn’t get through the door. If she had been thinking clearly, she might have realized they’d be worried about her. Max might even (too late) be scouring the streets. But she was thinking only of how easily she could fade away. Let them write her off as an erratic visitor. Bobby and his friends didn’t know her; they had no loyalty to her. They’d been very kind. They’d probably be very kind to a lost puppy. She’d been attacked on the street and robbed of her mobile. It could have been a lot worse. She had cash and cards. She could book a room and review her options in the morning.
‘I don’t suppose the tourist office is open?’ she said.
They laughed. ‘At this hour!’
‘It’s like I’ve been trying to tell you. I need to find somewhere to stay.’
The tall, gaunt officer replaced an old piece of gum with a fresh one; his jaw rotated as he perused her. Allie read the message in his eyes and the expressions of the rest: no one was likely to want to take her in her present state, and with no luggage.
The men conferred, massaging their chins and tugging their earlobes. She could see the butt of a gun carelessly displayed in a holster. Then the one with the burnished acorn skull, whose English was the most adept, said, ‘We have a colleague who runs with his wife an agriturismo. Is possible they have a room.’
‘Hey, that would be fantastic. Favoloso! Grazie mille.’
People like to help, Allie had learned, and it was a truth she found useful. It was surprising how far gratitude could carry you if you played it right: just don’t let anyone know how desperate you really are. She caught some of the words the officer used during his call. She heard his apologies for the late hour, for the disturbance; she heard herself being described as a signorina con un piccolo problema. Then she saw him smile and exchange a couple of insults before he replaced the receiver. ‘Tutto a posto.’ He beamed, latching his fingers together.
Probably, she thought as she was ushered with some delicacy back into the patrol car, they were relieved to finish their form and get her signature. Plus it had been a diversion for them on an uneventful shift. Whereas her own evening had been more like an out-of-body experience, her mind in flight from information it couldn’t accept. The girl whose hands had clawed suddenly at Bobby’s sleeve and cried, ‘You’re joking!’ seemed very distant from the girl lying in the gutter, emptying her lungs and kicking a man in the balls.
‘Agriturismi can be hard to find,’ said her driver, his headlights sweeping the dark tarmac. ‘But our colleague’s is one we know well.’
In the back seat Allie was picturing another, future scene. She could see herself in conversation with her mother, saying, ‘You know, the police were really good to me on Ischia when I got mugged. They even went out of their way to find me a place to stay.’ And Helena rising from her chair, shaking her head in disbelief, replying: ‘Only you, Allegra, could sleep with your half-brother and get yourself robbed and still be grateful for small mercies. How do you do it, darling?’
Allie groaned inwardly. For the moment though, some small comforts awaited. They were approaching the long, low silhouette of a farmhouse and converted outbuildings. Cypresses lined the drive, the aroma of pine resin was soothing in the warm night. A golden glow seeped around the edges of the shutters and through the welcoming open door.
The driver got out, cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Ciao, Enzo! Cristina! Siamo arrivati.’
A woman stood in the porch and waved a greeting. A middle-aged man – the first thing Allie noticed about him was his furry black moustache – came out to carry her non-existent suitcase.
‘Senza bagagli,’ said the carabiniere with an expressive shrug.
Something to steady the nerves, thought Allie, that’s what I really need. A calming smoke or a couple of Valium. Failing that, if they ask, I’ll say, Oh please, a bath would be absolute bliss.
PART FOUR
FATTORIA LA CASTAGNA
19
Helena opened the door of her daughter’s house to a man in police uniform. She was wearing spiky earrings, a green low-necked top and cream wide-leg trousers. He was wearing an old-fashioned helmet strapped beneath his chin and a reproving frown.
‘You bastard!’ she said.
The man clumped over the threshold in his heavy black shoes. He picked her up in his arms and staggered a little. ‘Don’t struggle or I’ll drop you. Hold on.’ He nudged the sitting-room door open with his foot. ‘I’m not going to be able to manage the stairs, but this will be better anyway. Now, shhh. Don’t say a word.’
He laid her out on the beaten-up old couch and closed the curtains. The room had a bleak, impermanent feel as if it were between lets – no pictures gave life to the walls, no personal possessions animated the alcove shelving – but the sun dipping through the red chenille gave it a rosy glow like a bordello.
‘I had a problem with the music,’ he said, crossing to the CD player. ‘I couldn’t decide what would suit you best. In the end . . .’ – he took a disc from his pocket and slotted it into the machine – ‘. . . I decided to go for the obvious.’
The first bars of ‘Every Breath You Take’ murmured in the corner of the room, strengthening as he increased the volume.
‘I was never a Sting fan,’ said Helena.
‘Be quiet! You mustn’t interrupt or you’ll spoil the act.’
She propped herself against the under-stuffed cushions and turned her head towards him. First he shuffled out of his shoes. Then he took off the plastic helmet and spun it on his finger. With a pious show of reverence he rested it at a jaunty angle on the mantel clock. To the lyrics of the first verse he began to unbutton his tunic. He kept his movements steady, unhurried, in time with the beat. His mouth didn’t quiver, his eyes were impassive. He shrugged the tunic suggestively from his shoulders and whirled it around his torso before tossing it to the ground. By degrees he loosened his tie, pulling the longer end through the knot in a teasing motion. Starting at the collar he undid the buttons on his shirt, pausing as each one slipped its moorings and displayed another couple of inches of bare flesh. He unfastened his cuffs, let the shirt slither down his back and repeated the cape-whirling. As the melody eddied around him, he released the buckle on his belt.
Helena was choking on suppressed laughter. ‘The song will be finished before you are.’
He ignored her, tugged the belt from his trouser loops and slowly drew down the zip of his fly. The final chorus hissed i
ts warning into the room. He eased the trousers over his hips and let them fall.
‘At this point,’ he said. ‘They’d all be purple with giggles and my dick would be shrivelled like a peanut shell so naturally I’d keep my underpants on. However, madam, for you alone, I’ll make an exception.’ He discarded the striped boxer shorts, knelt beside the sofa and kissed her.
She ran her hand down the sturdy plane of his back. His flesh felt firm but tender, like fillet steak, and the scent of him was strong and salty like anchovies. ‘I can’t believe you really did this,’ she said.
‘What?’ said Simon. ‘Just now. Or before?’
‘Either. Both.’
‘Needs must. When I was a poor student it was a way of making easy money. If you could put up with the hen humour.’
‘Evidently you could.’
‘It got to me in the end, though. I never imagined I’d be able to fit into the costume. It was a bit tight around the waist but, hey, not bad after sixteen years, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Not bad at all.’
As he tried to clamber on top of her the springs creaked and the cushions slithered sideways. The music was still playing but they no longer heard it. Helena held his face between her hands. ‘This isn’t going to work,’ she said. ‘It’s too uncomfortable and neither of us is a teenager any more.’
‘Then take me upstairs, girl.’ He gave a parody growl. ‘Dammit, just take me. Anyway, anywhere you want me.’
‘Give me a minute,’ said Helena, as they both got unsteadily to their feet. She moved the standard lamp into the bay and parted the red curtains a few inches so it could be seen. Then she replaced its shade with the imitation policeman’s helmet. ‘Honestly, Simon, you make me feel as if I’m playing a part in a P. G. Wodehouse novel.’
He feigned dismay. ‘Sure you don’t mean D. H. Lawrence?’
He ran ahead of her up the stairs, naked and exuberant. Helena followed him into her old bedroom – the bedroom where she’d lost her virginity so many years before to the seventeen-year-old schoolboy who’d been brave enough to scale the trellis to her balcony and claim it. Like Romeo and Juliet, he’d said, being romantically inclined. Helena recalled only a sense of bitter disillusion. In the decades since, she had made love in this room on two occasions. Both last week. Both with Simon. In the pub, after their meeting in Lee’s, he had talked her into a date. After their banquet in Chinatown he’d got into her cab (although he only lived up the hill) and insisted on accompanying her home.
She hadn’t intended to stay so long in Allie’s house, but when a couple of new commissions were offered along with studio space, she’d collected some more belongings and made the temporary move. It was definitely temporary: her clothes were hanging from the picture rail, heaped on to surfaces, tumbled in two suitcases. And she missed the things she’d left behind in Oxford in oversight: her favourite panama, her clock radio, decent bath towels, nail scissors. But at least now she had the car with her and was able to take more rubbish to the tip, things that would have no meaning for Allie. In the loft she’d found bundles of rotted tablecloths, for instance, old school books and an Olivetti typewriter in a dusty case. She and Liddy had once written savage sketches mocking their teachers on the typewriter – or rather, Helena had written the savage bits; Liddy had moderated the language and corrected the spelling with Tippex.
‘There’s no point,’ she’d said to Simon as he helped her pile the rubbish into her boot, ‘in hanging on to the past.’
‘That’s why you fascinate me, Helena Ashbourne. For a conservator, you’re a mass of contradictions.’
‘Work’s different. It’s the challenge of fitting pieces together, finding the key. The objects themselves just prove how ephemeral we all are. It isn’t about sentiment.’
‘You’re recreating what’s dead and buried.’
‘But from a stranger’s past. Not mine. That’s what they say about shrinks, isn’t it, they treat everybody’s hang-ups but their own?’
‘Hang-ups?’ he’d said. ‘Like what?’
‘Uniforms,’ she’d said instantly.
‘School uniforms?’
‘All sorts. Nurses, traffic wardens, policemen, squaddies . . .’
‘I’m sure a shrink would have something to say about that.’
‘I’m sure you’re right.’
He had manoeuvred her to the bed in the centre of the room and was lifting her top over her head. Through the gauzy green fabric she could see the blunt shape of his features, but not his expression. ‘It’s caught in my earring,’ she said, raising her hands to disentangle herself. He left the task to her and concentrating on freeing her breasts from her bra, his tongue lapping at a nipple. As she finally stripped off her top he gravitated to her lower half. He tipped her on to the bed, sliding off her trousers and briefs with one easy movement, massaging her insteps with his thumbs and stretching her legs into a V shape, tucking them under his armpits.
‘I’ve been thinking about this all day,’ he said.
She raised her hips and locked her legs behind his back, bringing him closer. ‘You were supposed to ring me, to tell me what time you were coming.’
‘I wanted to give you a treat, to turn you on.’
He must know he’d succeeded. She toyed with the shaft of his penis, letting it buck and butt against her palm, and then guided it in the right direction, savouring the sensation of it pulsing inside her. It wasn’t what she’d expected when she’d come back to Liverpool: to take up so quickly with a man who was not only younger, but – allegedly – unattached. She’d been fourteen years with Ian and although their parting was amicable she was in no rush for more. But Simon had the advantage of novelty and he brought her that essential ingredient in any romantic diversion: fun.
Afterwards, when he lay with his head against her heartbeat, she said, ‘You’re good at that.’
‘What?’ he murmured. ‘Fornication?’
‘Surprises.’
‘Hey, did you really like it? The whole striptease thing? Naff as The Full Monty? I did wonder whether it might be going too far, but when I found the outfit I couldn’t resist.’
‘I’m amazed you kept it.’
‘Not on purpose. It was in a box, under a heap of books I didn’t know whether I might need again.’
‘I suppose you found it amusing: criminologist dressing up as police constable. How did the hens react?’
‘With staggering predictability.’ He moved his hand over her abdomen and let it rest between her legs. ‘With one exception. Poor girl thought I was going to arrest her. Burst into tears and was inconsolable. I went through the whole stripping lark to show her I wasn’t for real but she sobbed throughout.’
Helena felt her stomach contract. ‘Does anyone ever dredge it up? Your murky fanny-baiting past?’
‘I’ll admit it’s undignified,’ he said. ‘But no one actually cares. They just think you’re a bit of a lad. I know it’s different for women. You ever been a lap dancer?’
‘Too old.’
‘Bollocks.’ He pulled her into his arms. ‘So you didn’t find it too crass, the whole routine?’
‘I loved the routine,’ said Helena. ‘In fact, I enjoyed it so much I’d like you to do it again – and piss into the helmet for good measure.’
‘What into the helmet?’
‘Urinate. It’s plastic, isn’t it?’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘I will if you will.’
She sat up. ‘I need a drink first.’ She surveyed the welter of crumpled sheets and discarded clothes, as if a handy bottle of wine might be bobbing amid the debris.
Simon stroked the curve of her cheek. ‘I’ve a confession to make.’
‘What?’
‘I know we were thinking of going out for a meal but, idiot that I am, I have no other clothes with me. Driving round to you was okay, but I cannot saunter the streets of Waterloo in cheap fancy dress. It will ruin my image.’
‘Oh.’
‘
Haven’t you got something that might fit me?’
‘Certainly not!’
‘It wasn’t an insult. You have terrifically long legs.’
‘I wasn’t insulted.’ She bit her lip. ‘But I had a bad experience once, ages ago, with a boyfriend who borrowed my clothes. It wasn’t an identity crisis I could handle at the time.’ She could see his hair tumbled around the puffed sleeves of a cotton blouse. ‘Don’t ask,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to know.’
He swung his feet to the floor. ‘Then I guess I’ll have to wear a towel as a loincloth. With your permission?’
She nodded. ‘Anyway, there’s no need to go out. I have booze downstairs and maybe some eggs or something, as long as you’re not very hungry.’
With brimming wineglasses, they swayed around the kitchen, obstructing each other’s efforts to make toast and scramble eggs. The rest of The Police’s greatest hits serenaded them down the hallway. Helena had borrowed Allie’s new dressing gown and her breast kept poking past its lapel. Simon’s towel kept loosening itself from his hips. He was kissing the back of her neck when the bread caught fire and the telephone rang.
‘Don’t answer it,’ he said.
She was busy flapping away the smoke with a dishcloth. He probed the interior of the toaster with two forks.
‘Don’t electrocute yourself.’
He laid down the forks and some black pieces of charcoal. ‘Salvage complete. Dare we try again? Or is it knackered, d’you think?’
‘I hope not. It’s brand new.’ The ringing stopped. ‘I can’t imagine who it would have been,’ she said. ‘Hardly anyone uses the landline.’
Half an hour and half a bottle later they were back in the bedroom with a tray containing two plates of scrambled egg and a bowl of bananas sliced into yoghurt, for which Simon had all kinds of ideas. When they had cleared their plates and emptied the bottle, Helena disrobed and disposed herself once more on the bed. Spread-eagled, she permitted him to decorate her with the banana slices and a creamy trail of natural yoghurt. When the phone rang for the second time she was in no position to respond; she could not have moved if she’d wanted to, tormented by a thousand licks. The CD had long since ended; in the distance was the faint grumble of a train; in contrast, the ringing was loud and persistent. She looked down at the top of Simon’s head where the crown was thinning – and she welcomed his dedication. A great wave of released tension washed over her, a pleasant surfeit of repeating ripples. By the time they ceased so had the telephone.
