Section Thirty Two
Notebook
Christmas is coming and our time is wearing thin.
We stare at the river.
Gloomily.
Old Mama Thames.
The water licks like treacle, plunging and sucking at the bottom of the wall.
Boats press by, their wash invading and receding, covering and revealing pebbles on the beach.
We stare down over the railings. We are wordless, but we are so noisy. We crackle with emotional noise. The traffic fizzes behind us.
I cannot speak, so he breaks the silence.
"Look, let's face it; you're going one way and I'm going another. We should be adult enough to deal with this."
"Yeah, maybe we should, but I'm not adult, and I can't, OK?"
"Look, I'm only doing what's right, and what's logical."
"Yeah, well, Calcutta, King's Cross, Naples, I can see the logical progression. Whether it's getting better or worse I don't know."
"Look, deep down, I don't have any choice. You should know that."
"Yeah. 'A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.'"
"If you like. And I'm not about to start apologising for it, either."
"No, no, perish the thought."
"Look, will you stop this? I can't stand any more."
"Well, how the hell do you think I feel? I'm just about at the end of my tether. If you're gonna go, just go, for Christ's sake. Follow your lily-white dream. Do your own thing. Be your own person, but just fuck off and do it now and stop talking about it and end this nightmare."
"It shouldn't be a nightmare. We really should be capable of handling this. I'm not going to the end of the earth. And I'm not going for ever, either." He edges away.
"Frightened you're gonna catch something?"
"To be honest, what I'm frightened of is you. I think you're going to erupt any second."
"You reckon?"
"Yeah, that's one of the problems. You just get too intense for me, sometimes."
"You reckon? Most people think of me as flippant."
"They don't know you so well."
"Well, that's how I think of myself as well."
"Perhaps you don't know yourself so well either."
"No, perhaps not. But I know I can rely on you to delve deep into my mind and reach an incontestable conclusion about my personality."
"Listen, I'm not going to take this shit from you. You've got that tone of voice again, and I just can't stand listening to it any more. And let's face it, I don't have to."
"No, you don't. True. Cruel but true."
"Look, can we please not fight. It won't do any good"
"No, it won't do any good."
He sniffs. Scratches his nose. I try to keep the words down but they well up. "Let me tell you one last thing - we've gone too far now. We can't go back to being friends - it's all or nothing. So if you're unfaithful to me - just once! - that's it. That's us finished. That's a wall between us forever."
He says nothing. I prise a piece of mortar loose from the wall and let it drop to the water's edge. I turn to face him.
He nods. A turn on his heel. A walk into the tunnel to the tube station. A series of heel-clicks. The past echoing away.
I turn around to face the river. A paper-hat floats by.
The train rumbled in. She looked up. -Right, you caged inmates. -Let's get the measure of you.
She stepped up and pushed through the crowd to the middle of the carriageway. There was a spare seat, midway between doors. People milled in to either side. People stood around her. Edged in from both ways. She looked up. Two staring pairs of bloodshot eyes.
To her right, the youth who'd stared at her the first time she'd ever got on one of these cursed trains. Did he travel the trains all day?
To her left, the youth she'd seen before when trying to cross the street. Did the two of them know each other? Did either of them remember her? Even recognise her?
-Sod this blonde hair! -What to do? -Look down or stare them out?
She looked up, and stared insolently at first one and then the other pair of semi-wrecked eyes. They stared back. She decided to look down again. Waited. The train slowed. The doors opened.
-Shit! -My station!
She hightailed it out to and then out of Montesanto Station, looking back over her shoulder. Not pursued. -Now where? She opened her map. She stopped a throng of teenaged girls and boys. "Scusi, ma per arrivare alla Piazza Dante?"
"A piedi?"
"Sì, a piedi." -Is it that crazy to go anywhere on foot in this crazy town?
They clustered around her, laughing. They spoke too rapidly to understand. They looked at her map. They seemed to be besotted by her, her predicament, her means of transport, her means of navigation, as if she were the only thing in the world worthy of their attention. She was in a sea of smiling teeth. They jostled each other. "Allora..." They dragged her down a street, like a role-reversal Pied Piper, then pointed straight on up another one. "Là. Sempre dritto. Sempre dritto."
"Grazie."
A chorus of "Prego"s.
She set off. A slow stagger. A waggle and a wobble and she found herself back in Piazza Dante. Almost by accident. -OK. -Made it. -Thanks, kids.
She looked around the square. No sign of him yet. She checked out the park-benches and the lie of the street again. Saluted the poet on his foundation of graffiti. But not too closely. Enough communing with statues for one day.
She chose a vantage point and sat down on a flaky bench to wait. The scene thronged around her. It bucked and snarled and twisted. She slapped her face. Gently.
She saw him from afar. She could make him out quite easily. He walked with his hands clasped in front of them. -He holds his hands just like that nutter on the streets back home.
-DON'T USE THAT WORD!
-Sorry, Mother. -Which one; 'nutter' or 'home'? -Good to hear you're back on the outside of me at least!
He seemed to be talking to himself, maybe chewing, dodging effortlessly through the crowds on the pavement like a chess grand-master thinking several moves ahead. Apart from his mouth, his whole body above the waist remained motionless. He disappeared.
"Hi there." He had made an effort to spruce himself up. Didn't smell so musty anymore.
"Hi."
"You found the place OK?"
"Yeah. In fact, it's the second time I've been here."
"Oh? Right! Have a good day?"
"It's been - eventful." Silence. The hint not taken up. "And you? Did you have a good day?"
"Yeah. Fine, I guess."
"What did you do?"
"Oh - "
"A bit of this, a bit of that," they chorused simultaneously.
Instead of looking offended, he grinned. They both burst into laughter. He scratched at a point on his forehead. "Right, you wanna eat?"
"Yes, where do we go?"
He gestured down the Via Toledo. "Straight down there. To the sea. You OK to walk? In those shoes?"
"Yeah." She looked down the slope. "Yes, I'll be fine, thanks."
SILVER SILVER SILVER.
...rabbit-warren...tumble of produce...tangle of roots...evil-eye...ragamuffins in the streets...scooter-slammed...rubberised arcs...
DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO
...splinters and melts...cans of oil...bottles of water...barefoot and bleeding...sound swelled down from the alleys...blood-scabbed to the spot...heavy black lines...rolled-out crumpling roar...flakes of ash...sulphur...
SILVER SILVER SILVER.
"Um, on second thoughts, my feet are a bit sore: I've been walking all day. And these shoes are a little bit tight. Could we get a bus or something?"
"Sure, no problem." He looked around. Made a visible decision. "This way." He ushered her down the slope.
"Do we need to get a ticket?"
"No." He patted a pocket in his combat jacket. "I've got a stack here."
A bus hove into view almost immediately. They got on. He became silent, immediately. She stood and watched the city go by. The bus veered away from the danger spot almost immediately, away from suffocatingly paranoiac corners of the Old Quarters. They flashed past the modernity around the Poste Centrale: it was crass but it was spacious.
She stood and watched the citizens go by. She kept thinking she recognised various youths among them as they twisted and hustled their way along the crowded pavements.
The bus nudged around the vicinity of the Royal Palace and the San Carlo Opera House. The American nudged her shoulder. He spoke for the first time since they'd got on the bus. "We get off here."
They emerged into the fume-drenched main thoroughfare of Via Partenope. Her mouth seemed to fill up with waste gases. -Gah. -How can people eat in these surroundings?
"This way." He pointed towards the Castel dell' Ovo.
They moved off. She didn't know whether to hold his hand or not. He quickened his pace. She scurried to keep up with him.
The momentum still with them, they high-stepped along the causeway to the little island. The place was bustling with people; families, children and other couples. Other couples?
She paused half-way along. A small string of boats like a giant pearl necklace arced from where she stood back to the sea-wall. In the slight breeze, she could hear the tinkling like miniature bell-ringing of halyards slapping on the metal masts.
A dark flow. A nudge towards night. A muted chink of water. He stood beside her. He seemed distracted, lost in thought. They set off again. A faint gust of wind arose and blew her skirt up. She smoothed it down and trotted along briskly. They moved onto the main weight of the island. She looked up.
The giant, ponderous bulk of the castle made it look like a solidified flotation chamber at the end of a landing stage. Turned to honeycomb by the early evening sun, it had a sort of hulking delicacy. People were thronging, but were somehow more restrained; it was as if their night-time spirits had taken hold. They parted to let them pass in unison in a strangely lacklustre, accommodating way that contrasted with their day-time boisterousness. Only the children punctuated the lethargy; high, spiked, throw-away voices, piercing the drone and mutter at an angular pitch-and-throw.
Waiters waited, not beckoned, in brightly-lit terraces.
He edged her towards a restaurant. He edged her towards an open-air table. Chic families. Clean white tablecloths. Waiters like black carp flicking in midstream between them.
She went to sit down. She seemed to have to wait just too long, hovering over the seat, as the waiter waited before pushing the chair in. She draped her bag on the rounded back of the chair. It fell off. She removed a folder. Put it on the table. Replaced her bag. The waiter moved to centre stage, between them. Handed a menu to the American.
"Grazie," she said, eyeballing him.
"Prego, signorina." He hovered at the table.
"You want an aperitif?" asked the American.
"Yes, please. Campari and soda."
"Camparisoda," he said to the waiter, rather unnecessarily she thought. "And for me, I'll have - un whisky."
"Si, signore. E da bere, con il pranzo?"
"What do you wanna drink with the meal?"
"Well, actually, I know I've only been studying Italian for a year, but I did manage to work that one out for myself."
"Sorry. Guess I forgot. You like red wine?"
"Sure."
"Una bottiglia di Lacrima Christi. Rosso."
"Si, signore." The waiter disappeared.
"Lacrima Christi? Is that the local wine?"
"Yeah, charged through with the spirit of Vesuvius. Touch of the brimstone on your palate."
"Why, sir." She rolled her eyes. "You're getting all poetical."
He stared at her. Was he offended? Confused? He soon recovered. "And is there anything wrong with that?"
"Why, no, sir. Surely not. Indeed not."
She stared out at acres of open-air tables full of families wedged in their affluence, familial bonhomie seeming to mask some discord felt but not broadcast, an abundance of food on the table-tops and an extrovert gaiety in the air that seemed to switch the mood from one extreme to another across a thin-tight divide. But somehow there was a constant sense of the Spanish Quarter pressing down, threatening to rumble down the hillside and force them into the sea. The grid of thick black street lines swept up before her face and latticed and framed her view before she blinked it away.
The drinks arrived. She gestured to the menu. "So. What are we going to eat?"
"You wanna get into some fish? And vice versa?" He grinned.
She frowned and bent over the menu. "Yeah, that's fine, I guess. What do you recommend?"
He pointed. "How about this?"
"Which?"
"Zuppa di pesce. Lots of different kinds of fish. With lashings of tomato-type sauce. Like they're eating over there."
"Yeah. I guess."
"Something the matter?"
"Er - sorry. I'm just a bit worried about the price. This place is all a bit intimidating."
"Hey, no sweat, my treat."
"No, I can't do that."
"Look, you don't have to pay for anything - I'm not being sexist or anything but it's a piece of hospitality - a welcome to the city - it's traditional - and anyway it's not fair to ask you to pay 'cos you won't have got your finances organised yet - and anyway it's not that expensive - don't worry, I know these people - I can get a good deal - and anyway if you want to, you can repay the gesture sometime in the future."
"I don't like being under an obligation."
"Sure, no problem, then. If you never want to see me again, then the slate's clean. Don't worry about it." He ordered from the waiter with his arms and eyebrows. To her, in a low voice, he added "That's theoretically a starter but it's often enough for most people. We'll see how we go."
She nodded. They sipped their aperitifs and looked out at the passing passeggiata of couples, promenading link-armed, cool in the swelter, same-place same-time, like clockwork. She felt languid, and looked through half-closed eyes, in a painterly sort of way, until she caught his eyes. He seemed to be gazing more intently. Something appeared to have caught his eye... But he looked away. She thought she caught the swirl of a black cloak.
He broke the silence. "It's kinda nice to sit and watch the world go by."
"Nice. But dangerous."
"Why dangerous?"
"Because you end up doing nothing with your life. I mean to make things happen - I don't intend to just let the world drift past my table."
"You want to get into all that? Make your mark? You want to play all the power and influence games?
"If needs be. I certainly don't see why not."
"So you into power?"
"Sure. Why not?"
The wine arrived. "Well, try the power of this."
It burned and bubbled on the palate. "Hm. Very quaffable."
"You mind it doesn't quaff you."
"What, you think it might suck me in - devour me and then turn me into lava?"
"Exactly." His eyes narrowed. "One false move, and - hissss! No more." He took a delicate sip. Rinsed it around his mouth. Swallowed it with a slight gargle. Placed the empty glass on the tablecloth. Filled it, almost to the brim. It looked like a ruby lost in the snow.
-No. -No more snow. -No more silver, either. She eased her shoes off. She took another slug. Sulphur glazed her tongue. There was a sudden but muted roaring.
She looked up. He had obviously heard nothing. The tumble-down pressing down from the ramshackle vision in the periphery cracked in and sapped her concentration. Far-off noises buzzed in from far-away - she could hear every bump and murmur: slamming doors; footsteps echoing up alleyways; shrill calls booming from balconies; childish screams bouncing across streets. A smog of voices. It all seemed to zoom and oscillate and pincer around their table, then withdraw.
A lapping of water around her whole world. A glugging of more wine into her glass. He smiled at her. His lips moved.
"Beg pardon?" she said. "I mean - I beg your pardon?"
"I said - 'how old are you?'"
"Mind your own business! How old are you?"
"Me? I think I'm ageless: I'm a survivor. Been doing this sort of thing a long long time."
She raised her glass. "Hm. Yes, well perhaps we won't go into what 'this sort of thing' is. We might end up talking about 'a bit of this, a bit of that' again."
He grinned. "No, well let's talk about you. We'll pass on your age. Give me some more details. What are you doing?"
"Me? Oh, I'm doing a bit of a tour. Sussing things out. Thinking about where I might want to go to the year after next."
"Oh, your year abroad. You said - at the station. Many people come this far south?"
"No, that's just it. Most of them go to places like Siena."
"Siena? Bit different to here, hey?"
"Well, Siena's a really beautiful place. But it's not where I want to spend all Summer, talking English to other British students."
"Sounds as if you've made your mind up already."
"Could well have."
"You seem a pretty forceful young woman."
"I'm a pretty forceful human being."
"Can you be one without being the other?"
"Sorry. I'm not really that ogreish. I just come over a bit strong sometimes."
"Well, I hope you don't think I'm coming on too strong or anything but you really have got the most fantastic eyes. You've got a lot of class: you should do well here."
She beckoned him close towards her and whispered, "Well actually, I think you're coming on too strong or something."
He withdrew to a sort of huddle. He looked hurt. She gazed at him. He looked like a smacked dormouse. She felt an appalling suspicion that he was actually quite sweet and gentle really.
The waiter arrived. The food arrived.
Piles of steaming fish.
a writhing of tails and scales
within a glass case,
within a picture frame.
Heaps of herb-drenched tomato sauce.
blood-drops on the street,
blood-specks on her clothing.
Great mounds of toast.
She inhaled deeply. It was elemental. It smelt like the first droplets of spray from a new high tide. It smelt like a sun-baked garden in the middle of the day. It was delicious, but it was repellent.
A decision had to be made here. She made it. She fell upon it all. Fell upon it as if there were no tomorrow and no breakfast or dinner today either. Lock up your chickens. The fox is back in the hen-house.
She could feel his eyes on her. He chewed slowly as she all but swallowed and gulped her way through the the rapidly-diminishing heaps of food, her lips rimmed with red and fish-bone.
"Hey, you look like a coyote after the kill."
She snarled at him. "Prepare to run, Roadrunner."
He chuckled. "Anyone would think you hadn't eaten for days," he said.
"Oh, worse than that - hours."
He paused. "Hours are worse than days?"
"Yeah, in terms of hunger they are."
"Where did you eat?"
"Oh, some pizzeria at that little piazza near the road-tunnel just down from Mergellina station."
"Piazza Sannazzaro."
"Yeah, that's the place. It was in my guidebook." She indicated the folder.
"Oh, that what it is?"
"Yeah. Anyway, I had a pizza in the piazza. They weren't about to let me overstay my welcome, either
"No, this is a pleasant change, to have a relaxing leisurely meal - with pleasant company. It can be quite unusual in Naples: like the streets, the whole buzz in the restaurants seems to be fast as possible. Sometimes I swear it's possible to eat all three meals in Naples in less than half an hour altogether, if you catch my drift."
She caught his drift. The squawk of a bird caught her ear. She caught sight of the strange man again. His cloak swirled in the breeze as he strode down the causeway away from the island. He paused. He turned. He seemed to catch someone's eye. Without looking at him, the American flicked his fingers out from the clench that was supporting his face. She stared at the man. He turned again. Quickly. The bird on the end of its pole prescribed a precarious parabola, endangering passers-by. He retreated. She pointed after him. "He was there, too."
"Who? Oh."
"Know him?"
"No. Not really. Seen him around. Hard to miss really."
"He seemed to wave to you."
"No. I don't think so. He's crazy anyway, probably."
"Who is he?"
"Don't know. He's just around."
She took another drink. "I get the impression there are lots of people who are 'just around', Walter, my boy: you seem a bit of a shadowy - not to say shady - figure."
"Say, you mind doing me a favour? Don't call me Walter - the name's Walt."
She took another sip. "Walt. Just Walt. You were christened Walt?"
"No, I was christened Walter. But I don't like the name."
"But, why not - it has such a fine American lineage. Why, there's Walter Brennan, Walter Abish, Walter Cronkite, Walter Houston. A fine, upstanding name, Walter." She suddenly burst into song. "'Walter, Walter, lead me to the altar.'" The waiter poised, frozen in mid-action. "Good old Gracie. Have you heard of Gracie? Fine upstanding example of fine, upstanding Northern English culture. I suppose she's buried over there, somewhere, is she?" A nod of the head vaguely in the direction of Capri, lying probably mist-drenched and certainly just out of sight. "Piped out to the great front parlour in the sky to the strains of her own music, no doubt. 'Wish me luck as you wave me Goodbye'," she warbled. The waiter, seemingly defrosted, smoothed into disapproving action. She leaned over to the American, faced him intently with her beady eye. Where you from, Walt?"
He looked uneasy. "Wisconsin."
"Wisconsin?"
"Er, Milwaukee, to be more specific," he said, wincing (as if in anticipation.)
"Oh, Milwaukee, home of beer and brewing and lachrymose country and western songs about same. 'What made Milwaukee famous has made a loser out of me'," she roared. Several heads, seemingly attached to dining chairs, turned in her direction. "Now, that's what I call a real heritage. But where I come from, Walt, old son, where I come from, Gracie Fields rules supreme. The cultural figurehead, the icon of Lancashire." She drained her glass. "Shall we have some more wine? Cameriere," she bellowed, "un altra bottiglia di questo bellisimo vino, per favore." The waiter acceded with a slight bow, his eyes slit-narrowed, and departed. She turned back. "Well, the old Italian's coming along, anyway," she observed brightly.
The American wiped crusts from the no-longer-pristine tablecloth with a jerky gesture, as if someone had applied an electric jolt to his elbow. "You wanna be careful with that stuff. It's strong. Don't want what made Campania famous to make a monkey out of you."
"Are you intoxicating that I'm insinuated? Are you telling me, Walt old son, that I'm under the affluence of incohol?"
"Well, let's just say I think you're a little bit drunk."
"Yes, Walt, my boy. Drunk on Lacrima Christi, drunk on salt-air, drunk on expectation, drunk on Milwaukee and drunk on Gracie Fields. Here's to you, Grace. Whoops, we didn't say grace, did we? Sorry, Grace. An amazing woman. 'Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.'"
He leaned over. "I also think you're getting a little bit loud."
She was suddenly aware of an acute silence. She seemed to feel several pairs of eyes on the back of her dress. She lapsed into a silence to match his. She gazed at the bouncing sea. She felt suddenly bilious. "Have I blotted my copybook?"
"Well, I certainly think you've drawn attention to yourself."
"So, is that it? Am I castigated for ever?"
He chuckled again. "'Worse than that, hours', to quote you. Nice phrase, that - I like your way with words."
"Worse that that - hours." The crass words contrasted with the bloated feeling in her stomach:
worse than that hours
He flickered before her.
worse than that hours
The sea seemed to crash and splinter.
worse than that hours
in terms of hunger
worse than that hours
in terms of hunger
worse than that hours
Holy Mary, mother of God
Mother of God
Mother Mine
Mother Teresa
-Oh no - here we go again.
In a blur in a fog-stained blur the events swilled and stained in from the long-gone memory.
"John, you're not Mother Teresa, you know."
"I know. I know. I don't commit. I don't stay long enough. I prefer the glamour to the slog. Make no mistake: I know all this. I know all this mainly because you've told me all this. And I agree with you. I've always been a little do-gooder at heart, even when I was knee-high to your famous pith helmet. Reaction to my dad, I suppose."
"Hardly surprising."
"Hey, let's not bandy stereotypes. I've got a lot of respect for my old man. Though, at the time, I probably thought the same way as you do now. I saw it all in black and white. He did bad. So I was going to do good. But I've just not got round to it yet."
"So what next? When we go back?"
"Well, you're off to university. No problem for you."
"And you?"
"I don't know, kid. I'll do whatever comes along. I do really want to help somehow - there are just so many poor sods going hungry in this world - but the question is what? I'll do what needs to be done. I'll think about it."
"You're always thinking about it. Do it. Don't think about it. Do it. Do it. Do it. When's that train going?"
Christmas is coming and our time is wearing thin.
We stare at the river.
Gloomily.
Old Mama Thames.
The water licks like treacle, plunging and sucking at the bottom of the wall.
Boats press by, their wash invading and receding, covering and revealing pebbles on the beach.
We stare down over the railings. We are wordless, but we are so noisy. We crackle with emotional noise. The traffic fizzes behind us.
I cannot speak, so he breaks the silence.
"Look, let's face it; you're going one way and I'm going another. We should be adult enough to deal with this."
"Yeah, maybe we should, but I'm not adult, and I can't, OK?"
"Look, I'm only doing what's right, and what's logical."
"Yeah, well, Calcutta, King's Cross, Naples, I can see the logical progression. Whether it's getting better or worse I don't know."
"Look, deep down, I don't have any choice. You should know that."
"Yeah. 'A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.'"
"If you like. And I'm not about to start apologising for it, either."
"No, no, perish the thought."
"Look, will you stop this? I can't stand any more."
"Well, how the hell do you think I feel? I'm just about at the end of my tether. If you're gonna go, just go, for Christ's sake. Follow your lily-white dream. Do your own thing. Be your own person, but just fuck off and do it now and stop talking about it and end this nightmare."
"It shouldn't be a nightmare. We really should be capable of handling this. I'm not going to the end of the earth. And I'm not going for ever, either." He edges away.
"Frightened you're gonna catch something?"
"To be honest, what I'm frightened of is you. I think you're going to erupt any second."
"You reckon?"
"Yeah, that's one of the problems. You just get too intense for me, sometimes."
"You reckon? Most people think of me as flippant."
"They don't know you so well."
"Well, that's how I think of myself as well."
"Perhaps you don't know yourself so well either."
"No, perhaps not. But I know I can rely on you to delve deep into my mind and reach an incontestable conclusion about my personality."
"Listen, I'm not going to take this shit from you. You've got that tone of voice again, and I just can't stand listening to it any more. And let's face it, I don't have to."
"No, you don't. True. Cruel but true."
"Look, can we please not fight. It won't do any good"
"No, it won't do any good."
He sniffs. Scratches his nose. I try to keep the words down but they well up. "Let me tell you one last thing - we've gone too far now. We can't go back to being friends - it's all or nothing. So if you're unfaithful to me - just once! - that's it. That's us finished. That's a wall between us forever."
He says nothing. I prise a piece of mortar loose from the wall and let it drop to the water's edge. I turn to face him.
He nods. A turn on his heel. A walk into the tunnel to the tube station. A series of heel-clicks. The past echoing away.
I turn around to face the river. A paper-hat floats by.
The train rumbled in. She looked up. -Right, you caged inmates. -Let's get the measure of you.
She stepped up and pushed through the crowd to the middle of the carriageway. There was a spare seat, midway between doors. People milled in to either side. People stood around her. Edged in from both ways. She looked up. Two staring pairs of bloodshot eyes.
To her right, the youth who'd stared at her the first time she'd ever got on one of these cursed trains. Did he travel the trains all day?
To her left, the youth she'd seen before when trying to cross the street. Did the two of them know each other? Did either of them remember her? Even recognise her?
-Sod this blonde hair! -What to do? -Look down or stare them out?
She looked up, and stared insolently at first one and then the other pair of semi-wrecked eyes. They stared back. She decided to look down again. Waited. The train slowed. The doors opened.
-Shit! -My station!
She hightailed it out to and then out of Montesanto Station, looking back over her shoulder. Not pursued. -Now where? She opened her map. She stopped a throng of teenaged girls and boys. "Scusi, ma per arrivare alla Piazza Dante?"
"A piedi?"
"Sì, a piedi." -Is it that crazy to go anywhere on foot in this crazy town?
They clustered around her, laughing. They spoke too rapidly to understand. They looked at her map. They seemed to be besotted by her, her predicament, her means of transport, her means of navigation, as if she were the only thing in the world worthy of their attention. She was in a sea of smiling teeth. They jostled each other. "Allora..." They dragged her down a street, like a role-reversal Pied Piper, then pointed straight on up another one. "Là. Sempre dritto. Sempre dritto."
"Grazie."
A chorus of "Prego"s.
She set off. A slow stagger. A waggle and a wobble and she found herself back in Piazza Dante. Almost by accident. -OK. -Made it. -Thanks, kids.
She looked around the square. No sign of him yet. She checked out the park-benches and the lie of the street again. Saluted the poet on his foundation of graffiti. But not too closely. Enough communing with statues for one day.
She chose a vantage point and sat down on a flaky bench to wait. The scene thronged around her. It bucked and snarled and twisted. She slapped her face. Gently.
She saw him from afar. She could make him out quite easily. He walked with his hands clasped in front of them. -He holds his hands just like that nutter on the streets back home.
-DON'T USE THAT WORD!
-Sorry, Mother. -Which one; 'nutter' or 'home'? -Good to hear you're back on the outside of me at least!
He seemed to be talking to himself, maybe chewing, dodging effortlessly through the crowds on the pavement like a chess grand-master thinking several moves ahead. Apart from his mouth, his whole body above the waist remained motionless. He disappeared.
"Hi there." He had made an effort to spruce himself up. Didn't smell so musty anymore.
"Hi."
"You found the place OK?"
"Yeah. In fact, it's the second time I've been here."
"Oh? Right! Have a good day?"
"It's been - eventful." Silence. The hint not taken up. "And you? Did you have a good day?"
"Yeah. Fine, I guess."
"What did you do?"
"Oh - "
"A bit of this, a bit of that," they chorused simultaneously.
Instead of looking offended, he grinned. They both burst into laughter. He scratched at a point on his forehead. "Right, you wanna eat?"
"Yes, where do we go?"
He gestured down the Via Toledo. "Straight down there. To the sea. You OK to walk? In those shoes?"
"Yeah." She looked down the slope. "Yes, I'll be fine, thanks."
SILVER SILVER SILVER.
...rabbit-warren...tumble of produce...tangle of roots...evil-eye...ragamuffins in the streets...scooter-slammed...rubberised arcs...
DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO
...splinters and melts...cans of oil...bottles of water...barefoot and bleeding...sound swelled down from the alleys...blood-scabbed to the spot...heavy black lines...rolled-out crumpling roar...flakes of ash...sulphur...
SILVER SILVER SILVER.
"Um, on second thoughts, my feet are a bit sore: I've been walking all day. And these shoes are a little bit tight. Could we get a bus or something?"
"Sure, no problem." He looked around. Made a visible decision. "This way." He ushered her down the slope.
"Do we need to get a ticket?"
"No." He patted a pocket in his combat jacket. "I've got a stack here."
A bus hove into view almost immediately. They got on. He became silent, immediately. She stood and watched the city go by. The bus veered away from the danger spot almost immediately, away from suffocatingly paranoiac corners of the Old Quarters. They flashed past the modernity around the Poste Centrale: it was crass but it was spacious.
She stood and watched the citizens go by. She kept thinking she recognised various youths among them as they twisted and hustled their way along the crowded pavements.
The bus nudged around the vicinity of the Royal Palace and the San Carlo Opera House. The American nudged her shoulder. He spoke for the first time since they'd got on the bus. "We get off here."
They emerged into the fume-drenched main thoroughfare of Via Partenope. Her mouth seemed to fill up with waste gases. -Gah. -How can people eat in these surroundings?
"This way." He pointed towards the Castel dell' Ovo.
They moved off. She didn't know whether to hold his hand or not. He quickened his pace. She scurried to keep up with him.
The momentum still with them, they high-stepped along the causeway to the little island. The place was bustling with people; families, children and other couples. Other couples?
She paused half-way along. A small string of boats like a giant pearl necklace arced from where she stood back to the sea-wall. In the slight breeze, she could hear the tinkling like miniature bell-ringing of halyards slapping on the metal masts.
A dark flow. A nudge towards night. A muted chink of water. He stood beside her. He seemed distracted, lost in thought. They set off again. A faint gust of wind arose and blew her skirt up. She smoothed it down and trotted along briskly. They moved onto the main weight of the island. She looked up.
The giant, ponderous bulk of the castle made it look like a solidified flotation chamber at the end of a landing stage. Turned to honeycomb by the early evening sun, it had a sort of hulking delicacy. People were thronging, but were somehow more restrained; it was as if their night-time spirits had taken hold. They parted to let them pass in unison in a strangely lacklustre, accommodating way that contrasted with their day-time boisterousness. Only the children punctuated the lethargy; high, spiked, throw-away voices, piercing the drone and mutter at an angular pitch-and-throw.
Waiters waited, not beckoned, in brightly-lit terraces.
He edged her towards a restaurant. He edged her towards an open-air table. Chic families. Clean white tablecloths. Waiters like black carp flicking in midstream between them.
She went to sit down. She seemed to have to wait just too long, hovering over the seat, as the waiter waited before pushing the chair in. She draped her bag on the rounded back of the chair. It fell off. She removed a folder. Put it on the table. Replaced her bag. The waiter moved to centre stage, between them. Handed a menu to the American.
"Grazie," she said, eyeballing him.
"Prego, signorina." He hovered at the table.
"You want an aperitif?" asked the American.
"Yes, please. Campari and soda."
"Camparisoda," he said to the waiter, rather unnecessarily she thought. "And for me, I'll have - un whisky."
"Si, signore. E da bere, con il pranzo?"
"What do you wanna drink with the meal?"
"Well, actually, I know I've only been studying Italian for a year, but I did manage to work that one out for myself."
"Sorry. Guess I forgot. You like red wine?"
"Sure."
"Una bottiglia di Lacrima Christi. Rosso."
"Si, signore." The waiter disappeared.
"Lacrima Christi? Is that the local wine?"
"Yeah, charged through with the spirit of Vesuvius. Touch of the brimstone on your palate."
"Why, sir." She rolled her eyes. "You're getting all poetical."
He stared at her. Was he offended? Confused? He soon recovered. "And is there anything wrong with that?"
"Why, no, sir. Surely not. Indeed not."
She stared out at acres of open-air tables full of families wedged in their affluence, familial bonhomie seeming to mask some discord felt but not broadcast, an abundance of food on the table-tops and an extrovert gaiety in the air that seemed to switch the mood from one extreme to another across a thin-tight divide. But somehow there was a constant sense of the Spanish Quarter pressing down, threatening to rumble down the hillside and force them into the sea. The grid of thick black street lines swept up before her face and latticed and framed her view before she blinked it away.
The drinks arrived. She gestured to the menu. "So. What are we going to eat?"
"You wanna get into some fish? And vice versa?" He grinned.
She frowned and bent over the menu. "Yeah, that's fine, I guess. What do you recommend?"
He pointed. "How about this?"
"Which?"
"Zuppa di pesce. Lots of different kinds of fish. With lashings of tomato-type sauce. Like they're eating over there."
"Yeah. I guess."
"Something the matter?"
"Er - sorry. I'm just a bit worried about the price. This place is all a bit intimidating."
"Hey, no sweat, my treat."
"No, I can't do that."
"Look, you don't have to pay for anything - I'm not being sexist or anything but it's a piece of hospitality - a welcome to the city - it's traditional - and anyway it's not fair to ask you to pay 'cos you won't have got your finances organised yet - and anyway it's not that expensive - don't worry, I know these people - I can get a good deal - and anyway if you want to, you can repay the gesture sometime in the future."
"I don't like being under an obligation."
"Sure, no problem, then. If you never want to see me again, then the slate's clean. Don't worry about it." He ordered from the waiter with his arms and eyebrows. To her, in a low voice, he added "That's theoretically a starter but it's often enough for most people. We'll see how we go."
She nodded. They sipped their aperitifs and looked out at the passing passeggiata of couples, promenading link-armed, cool in the swelter, same-place same-time, like clockwork. She felt languid, and looked through half-closed eyes, in a painterly sort of way, until she caught his eyes. He seemed to be gazing more intently. Something appeared to have caught his eye... But he looked away. She thought she caught the swirl of a black cloak.
He broke the silence. "It's kinda nice to sit and watch the world go by."
"Nice. But dangerous."
"Why dangerous?"
"Because you end up doing nothing with your life. I mean to make things happen - I don't intend to just let the world drift past my table."
"You want to get into all that? Make your mark? You want to play all the power and influence games?
"If needs be. I certainly don't see why not."
"So you into power?"
"Sure. Why not?"
The wine arrived. "Well, try the power of this."
It burned and bubbled on the palate. "Hm. Very quaffable."
"You mind it doesn't quaff you."
"What, you think it might suck me in - devour me and then turn me into lava?"
"Exactly." His eyes narrowed. "One false move, and - hissss! No more." He took a delicate sip. Rinsed it around his mouth. Swallowed it with a slight gargle. Placed the empty glass on the tablecloth. Filled it, almost to the brim. It looked like a ruby lost in the snow.
-No. -No more snow. -No more silver, either. She eased her shoes off. She took another slug. Sulphur glazed her tongue. There was a sudden but muted roaring.
She looked up. He had obviously heard nothing. The tumble-down pressing down from the ramshackle vision in the periphery cracked in and sapped her concentration. Far-off noises buzzed in from far-away - she could hear every bump and murmur: slamming doors; footsteps echoing up alleyways; shrill calls booming from balconies; childish screams bouncing across streets. A smog of voices. It all seemed to zoom and oscillate and pincer around their table, then withdraw.
A lapping of water around her whole world. A glugging of more wine into her glass. He smiled at her. His lips moved.
"Beg pardon?" she said. "I mean - I beg your pardon?"
"I said - 'how old are you?'"
"Mind your own business! How old are you?"
"Me? I think I'm ageless: I'm a survivor. Been doing this sort of thing a long long time."
She raised her glass. "Hm. Yes, well perhaps we won't go into what 'this sort of thing' is. We might end up talking about 'a bit of this, a bit of that' again."
He grinned. "No, well let's talk about you. We'll pass on your age. Give me some more details. What are you doing?"
"Me? Oh, I'm doing a bit of a tour. Sussing things out. Thinking about where I might want to go to the year after next."
"Oh, your year abroad. You said - at the station. Many people come this far south?"
"No, that's just it. Most of them go to places like Siena."
"Siena? Bit different to here, hey?"
"Well, Siena's a really beautiful place. But it's not where I want to spend all Summer, talking English to other British students."
"Sounds as if you've made your mind up already."
"Could well have."
"You seem a pretty forceful young woman."
"I'm a pretty forceful human being."
"Can you be one without being the other?"
"Sorry. I'm not really that ogreish. I just come over a bit strong sometimes."
"Well, I hope you don't think I'm coming on too strong or anything but you really have got the most fantastic eyes. You've got a lot of class: you should do well here."
She beckoned him close towards her and whispered, "Well actually, I think you're coming on too strong or something."
He withdrew to a sort of huddle. He looked hurt. She gazed at him. He looked like a smacked dormouse. She felt an appalling suspicion that he was actually quite sweet and gentle really.
The waiter arrived. The food arrived.
Piles of steaming fish.
a writhing of tails and scales
within a glass case,
within a picture frame.
Heaps of herb-drenched tomato sauce.
blood-drops on the street,
blood-specks on her clothing.
Great mounds of toast.
She inhaled deeply. It was elemental. It smelt like the first droplets of spray from a new high tide. It smelt like a sun-baked garden in the middle of the day. It was delicious, but it was repellent.
A decision had to be made here. She made it. She fell upon it all. Fell upon it as if there were no tomorrow and no breakfast or dinner today either. Lock up your chickens. The fox is back in the hen-house.
She could feel his eyes on her. He chewed slowly as she all but swallowed and gulped her way through the the rapidly-diminishing heaps of food, her lips rimmed with red and fish-bone.
"Hey, you look like a coyote after the kill."
She snarled at him. "Prepare to run, Roadrunner."
He chuckled. "Anyone would think you hadn't eaten for days," he said.
"Oh, worse than that - hours."
He paused. "Hours are worse than days?"
"Yeah, in terms of hunger they are."
"Where did you eat?"
"Oh, some pizzeria at that little piazza near the road-tunnel just down from Mergellina station."
"Piazza Sannazzaro."
"Yeah, that's the place. It was in my guidebook." She indicated the folder.
"Oh, that what it is?"
"Yeah. Anyway, I had a pizza in the piazza. They weren't about to let me overstay my welcome, either
"No, this is a pleasant change, to have a relaxing leisurely meal - with pleasant company. It can be quite unusual in Naples: like the streets, the whole buzz in the restaurants seems to be fast as possible. Sometimes I swear it's possible to eat all three meals in Naples in less than half an hour altogether, if you catch my drift."
She caught his drift. The squawk of a bird caught her ear. She caught sight of the strange man again. His cloak swirled in the breeze as he strode down the causeway away from the island. He paused. He turned. He seemed to catch someone's eye. Without looking at him, the American flicked his fingers out from the clench that was supporting his face. She stared at the man. He turned again. Quickly. The bird on the end of its pole prescribed a precarious parabola, endangering passers-by. He retreated. She pointed after him. "He was there, too."
"Who? Oh."
"Know him?"
"No. Not really. Seen him around. Hard to miss really."
"He seemed to wave to you."
"No. I don't think so. He's crazy anyway, probably."
"Who is he?"
"Don't know. He's just around."
She took another drink. "I get the impression there are lots of people who are 'just around', Walter, my boy: you seem a bit of a shadowy - not to say shady - figure."
"Say, you mind doing me a favour? Don't call me Walter - the name's Walt."
She took another sip. "Walt. Just Walt. You were christened Walt?"
"No, I was christened Walter. But I don't like the name."
"But, why not - it has such a fine American lineage. Why, there's Walter Brennan, Walter Abish, Walter Cronkite, Walter Houston. A fine, upstanding name, Walter." She suddenly burst into song. "'Walter, Walter, lead me to the altar.'" The waiter poised, frozen in mid-action. "Good old Gracie. Have you heard of Gracie? Fine upstanding example of fine, upstanding Northern English culture. I suppose she's buried over there, somewhere, is she?" A nod of the head vaguely in the direction of Capri, lying probably mist-drenched and certainly just out of sight. "Piped out to the great front parlour in the sky to the strains of her own music, no doubt. 'Wish me luck as you wave me Goodbye'," she warbled. The waiter, seemingly defrosted, smoothed into disapproving action. She leaned over to the American, faced him intently with her beady eye. Where you from, Walt?"
He looked uneasy. "Wisconsin."
"Wisconsin?"
"Er, Milwaukee, to be more specific," he said, wincing (as if in anticipation.)
"Oh, Milwaukee, home of beer and brewing and lachrymose country and western songs about same. 'What made Milwaukee famous has made a loser out of me'," she roared. Several heads, seemingly attached to dining chairs, turned in her direction. "Now, that's what I call a real heritage. But where I come from, Walt, old son, where I come from, Gracie Fields rules supreme. The cultural figurehead, the icon of Lancashire." She drained her glass. "Shall we have some more wine? Cameriere," she bellowed, "un altra bottiglia di questo bellisimo vino, per favore." The waiter acceded with a slight bow, his eyes slit-narrowed, and departed. She turned back. "Well, the old Italian's coming along, anyway," she observed brightly.
The American wiped crusts from the no-longer-pristine tablecloth with a jerky gesture, as if someone had applied an electric jolt to his elbow. "You wanna be careful with that stuff. It's strong. Don't want what made Campania famous to make a monkey out of you."
"Are you intoxicating that I'm insinuated? Are you telling me, Walt old son, that I'm under the affluence of incohol?"
"Well, let's just say I think you're a little bit drunk."
"Yes, Walt, my boy. Drunk on Lacrima Christi, drunk on salt-air, drunk on expectation, drunk on Milwaukee and drunk on Gracie Fields. Here's to you, Grace. Whoops, we didn't say grace, did we? Sorry, Grace. An amazing woman. 'Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.'"
He leaned over. "I also think you're getting a little bit loud."
She was suddenly aware of an acute silence. She seemed to feel several pairs of eyes on the back of her dress. She lapsed into a silence to match his. She gazed at the bouncing sea. She felt suddenly bilious. "Have I blotted my copybook?"
"Well, I certainly think you've drawn attention to yourself."
"So, is that it? Am I castigated for ever?"
He chuckled again. "'Worse than that, hours', to quote you. Nice phrase, that - I like your way with words."
"Worse that that - hours." The crass words contrasted with the bloated feeling in her stomach:
worse than that hours
He flickered before her.
worse than that hours
The sea seemed to crash and splinter.
worse than that hours
in terms of hunger
worse than that hours
in terms of hunger
worse than that hours
Holy Mary, mother of God
Mother of God
Mother Mine
Mother Teresa
-Oh no - here we go again.
In a blur in a fog-stained blur the events swilled and stained in from the long-gone memory.
"John, you're not Mother Teresa, you know."
"I know. I know. I don't commit. I don't stay long enough. I prefer the glamour to the slog. Make no mistake: I know all this. I know all this mainly because you've told me all this. And I agree with you. I've always been a little do-gooder at heart, even when I was knee-high to your famous pith helmet. Reaction to my dad, I suppose."
"Hardly surprising."
"Hey, let's not bandy stereotypes. I've got a lot of respect for my old man. Though, at the time, I probably thought the same way as you do now. I saw it all in black and white. He did bad. So I was going to do good. But I've just not got round to it yet."
"So what next? When we go back?"
"Well, you're off to university. No problem for you."
"And you?"
"I don't know, kid. I'll do whatever comes along. I do really want to help somehow - there are just so many poor sods going hungry in this world - but the question is what? I'll do what needs to be done. I'll think about it."
"You're always thinking about it. Do it. Don't think about it. Do it. Do it. Do it. When's that train going?"
© 2006 by Adrian Benson
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