A Dead Man in Naples (15 page)

They came out close to a giant pine tree which offered a frame to the lovely panorama of Sorrento and Capri, and also to Vesuvius, wreathed now in the sunset in roseate steam.

When they walked a few yards in the other direction they could see over into the other bay, where the trawlers were putting out to do the night’s fishing, and where the small boats of the hand-line fishermen were just flocking back to shore. In the fading light the black sand of Coroglio beach glittered with the silver of newly landed mullet and anchovies.

Seymour wondered if the Marchesa was down there on the quayside with her people, waiting, in the Neapolitan way, for her boat to come in.

Giorgio had been a problem. Ever since her financial coup, he had refused to speak to Francesca. Instead, he talked to Seymour, feeling, he said, the need for a man’s point of view.

‘How can I marry her?’ he asked. ‘I couldn’t be supporting her: she would be supporting me.’

And that, his Neapolitan sense of male pride would not allow.

Francesca assured him that she didn’t actually have any money. She had put it all in trust. Giorgio wasn’t quite sure what this meant but felt dubious about it. It sounded like some more of her financial hanky-panky. He consulted Seymour on the point.

Seymour said that it certainly set the money at arm’s length but what it meant was that the money would still be there should they ever need it. If, for example, Giorgio’s new bicycle shop failed.

‘No chance,’ said Giorgio confidently. ‘The bicycle is the way of the future.’

Or when, said Seymour, there were lots of
bambini
in the house. ‘Children eat money,’ he said.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Giorgio, he could quite see that. His brow cleared. Less, however, because he was persuaded by Seymour’s argument than because he reckoned that when there were lots of
bambini
in the house, Francesca would have her hands too full to be able to go in for any financial cabbalism.

‘And after all,’ he said to Seymour, ‘a man is a man and a woman is a woman. When we are married she will do as I say.’

‘Giorgio –’ began Seymour, and then stopped. Who was he to shatter Giorgio’s illusions?