Peace Work (24 page)

∗

I awake at nine of the clock. I have much to do; I do some in the WC and some in the bathroom. My toilet complete, I knock on Hall’s door to be greeted by a stunning silence. I push the door open. The curtains are closed and so are Hall’s eyes. I awake him as gently as an “OI WAKE UP!” will allow. He gradually comes to; I count him down to consciousness, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! Wide awake now, Hall; hands off cocks, on socks! He’ll see me in the foyer in half an hour. Yes, but will I see him? I take breakfast in my stride.

“Is anybody sitting here?” It’s an English rose of a woman. No, nobody is sitting there. “Mind if I join you?” she says. She is blonde, blue-eyed, nicely filled out, oven-ready, I’d say. She is a singer and has come to join CSE. As there’s nobody else to do it, I introduce myself- DIY. She wants to know what there is to see. I tell her there’s Pompeii. What’s that? It’s a dead city. No, thanks, she says; she’s just come from one, Birmingham. She is satisfied when I say there is extensive shopping on the Via Roma. Will she excuse me? I have an appointment with the British Consul.

Hall is
not
in the foyer. I phone up to his room. Yes, yes, he’s coming. Together we get a taxi, I tell the driver Via Roma. We are looking for a passport photographer. Hall looks out the left side and I look out the right. Hall has the eye of an eagle and legs to match. He spots one.

“There, over there,” he says, rapping on the driver’s window.

“
Fermare!
” I shout.

“Ah,
si, capito
,” says our photographer, a tall Italian with slick black hair parted in the middle, a little pencilled-over moustache and a grey tight chalk-striped suit. He looked the ideal co-respondent in a divorce case. Yes, si, si, he can have the photographs ready in ‘
un’ora
’. So, after presenting our visages we have an hour to kill.

“Let’s kill a policeman,” I say.

We pass the time window-shopping and having a cup of coffee at the big NAAFI in the Via Roma. We duly collect our photos, which aren’t as bad as some.

Passport photo of the hearer.

It looks as if I’ve been on drugs. Hall looks as if he’s been dead a month. Thus supplied, we take a taxi to His Majesty’s Britannic Consul in the Piazza Bagnoli. At a desk with a ‘Ring Bell for Service’, we attract a middle-aged, slightly balding, thin, pale-faced Englishman wearing pebbled glasses that make his eyes stand out like organ stops. Ah, yes, he has received our applications. Have we the photographs? We present them. He looks at them at arm’s length, drawing them towards him then away again. Finally, he says “Which is which?” I point out me; he writes my name on the back. If we come back in a week, they will be ready. Bring five thousand lire each.

Now Hall and I split, me to the cashier at CSE barracks to sort my finances out. Another taxi. The cashier is a corporal in the Queen’s. Have I the CSE contract? I produce it from other papers. Yes, I’m in CSE for another six weeks; yes, I can have it all in advance. God, I’ll be so rich! It’s almost 72,000 lire! I must be careful; Naples is full of thieves, commonly known as the British Army.

I taxi to Toni’s hotel. It’s lunchtime and I find her in the dining-room, which abounds with the smell of garlic. Toni greets me; it’s all coming from her – yes, she just had scampi with garlic sauce. What a sauce! She’s anxious to know what day and garlic are we going to Capri? I tell her possibly the day after tomorrow. Only, she will only be allowed to stay at this hotel and garlic for another five days. Don’t worry, I will save her and garlic long before then. That evening would she like to go to the Bellini Theatre where they are showing
Night Must Fall?
Oh, she and her garlic would love to. OK, I will pick her up at seven and put her down again at one minute past. What am I talking about? Only time will tell. So saying, I catch taxi number three and take me and my 72,000 lire back to my hotel.

I inquire from the hotel porter about the ferry to Capri. Oh, yes, there are four a day: two in the morning and two in the afternoon. He shows me a printed brochure with times and prices, so I am set fair for the romantic isle where dwells the goddess Gracie Fields. In my bedroom, I lock the door then do an hour’s gloating over my 72,000 lire. I lay it on the bed next to me to have a rest. I shut my eyes. When I open them, the money is still there; the room appears to be safe. Aloud, I say seventy-two thousand lire. It sounds good. I carefully fold the money and place it in my jacket pocket to see if it makes a bulge. No, it doesn’t look like 72,000 lire. I take it out again and it does. I hold it up to the mirror, where it now looks like 144,000 lire! So, I spend a pleasant afternoon’s gloating.

Comes evening and I pick Toni up in a taxi and we drive up the Via Roma to the Theatre Bellini. Good heavens, Captain O’List is the manager for the show. “How nice to see you again, Spike,” he gushes. “I hear that the tour went very well.” Pay for seats? No, no, no, we can have compli-mentaries. Obviously this man doesn’t know that I’m carrying 72,000 lire. What posh! Captain O’List gives us a box for two. “See you in the interval for a drink in my ofice,” are his parting words.

Night Must Fall
. Toni cannot follow the dialogue, I am constantly having to translate in a hushed whisper. True to his word, Captain O’List is waiting for us during the interval and we have ‘drinky-poos’. Are we going steady? Yes, Toni and I are going steady.

“We’re going for a week on Capri,” I tell him.

“Oh,” he says, and lets it hang in the air like the Sword of Damocles. “Oh, Capri, eh? Ha, ha,” he says, the whole shot through with innuendo. Why, oh, why doesn’t he ask me how much money I’m carrying? “I’m due for demob in four weeks,” he says.

“Are you going back to the Windmill?”

“Yes, Vyvyan van Damn has kept the job open.”

“Do all those wankers who come to the Windmill to see naked birds listen to him singing?”

“Not many, but it’s a living.”

The second half puzzles Toni even further, especially the head in the hatbox.

“What he got in the box?”

“A head.”

“Head?”

“Yes,
una testa
.”

“Ah,
testa
.”

I enjoyed the play in which Miss Fontana took a leading part.

At the exit, Captain O’List wishes us goodbye and “Have a nice time on Capri!” Taxi? No, it’s a warm night so we walk down the Via Roma hand in hand and I unravel the play for Toni. By the time we get to the bottom of the Via I have done all the play again and, though I say it, played all the parts better than the actors managed. I flag down one of Napoli’s fleet of decaying taxis.

“Where we go?” says Toni.

“Ah ha,” I say, “somewhere nice – Zia Teresa.”

The driver nods.

In the taxi, I give Toni a long, lingering, burning kiss causing steam in my trousers. We arrive at the restaurant on the waterfront at Santa Lucia and walk down the side facing on to the bay. Zia Teresa is over a hundred years old; the roof is made of raffia-like straw with rough wooden poles as support. In the centre of the restaurant is the cooking area with a metal cowling over the top. I give the maître d’ a thousand lire note. “
Una tavola viacinal mare, per favore
,” I say, and we get a table directly on to the sea. As we sit down, night fishermen are hoving to, selling fresh fish to the chef. At the back of the restaurant are a guitar and a violin player plus a singer. “
0, mare lucido
” he sings.

“Theese is lovelee, Terr-ee,” says Toni, beaming with happiness.

We have an entire fish meal: fresh mussels and scampi. The wine was one of my favourites: Est Est Est. All this and tomorrow, Capri; walking on clouds wasn’t in it. What a view! At the end of a pier, on the right, the ancient Castello del Ovo, where I believe Cicero once had a villa; then, the broad sweep of the bay circling to our left, its winking lights following the curve to distant Sorrento; out in the crepuscular night, a ghostly image of Capri; above us all, the giant shape of Vesuvius, now black and silent but always threatening.

“How you find theese place?” she says. Well, before
Barbary Coast
one night we asked a taxi driver for a good restaurant and he brought us here. “How lucky,” she said. “
Che romantico
.”

Yes, how romantic, and the wine fortifies that feeling.

Midnight: the singer and the duo are visiting the tables. He reaches us; I ask him for ‘Vicino Mare’. We sit back sipping wine as the silvery voice floats on the balmy night air. After this, I call for the bill. When it arrives I flourish the 72,000 lire, peeling off the notes in time to the music. A very impressive performance enjoyed by the waiter. I give him a handsome tip and turn a normal human being into a subservient, grovelling hulk.

On the way home, I tell Toni about the arrangements for the morrow. I’ll pick her up at ten and we’ll catch the eleven o’clock ferry. “I don’t think I sleep tonight,” she said as she kissed me goodnight, causing more trouser steam. It’s one o’clock by the time I turn my light out. I close my eyes, undress Toni and fall asleep.

CAPRI

CAPRI

L
ovely! It’s a sunny day, nice and warm with a cool breeze. I pack my suitcase, only taking the bare essentials – like me. I’m too excited to eat breakfast, so I have a cup of tea. I buzz the porter and ask him to get me a taxi. When it arrives, he buzzes me: “
Taxipronto, signore!
” Toni is waiting in the foyer of her hotel; she is all beaming and giggles. She lights up when she sees me; she must know that I’m carrying what
was
72,000 lire. Our taxi turns into numerous buzzing backstreets on the way to the Porto Grande. There, waiting for us, is our dream boat –
Spirito del Mare
.

At the quayside ticket office, I buy our two returns and we board. We go into the airy saloon bar: we are early, the saloon is empty save for the barman. Can we have two coffees? “
Si accomodino
.” We sit at a window overlooking the deck; we hear’the engines start up. There are only a few passengers carrying bundles. All of them appear to be peasants who have come to Naples to shop or collect something. They are all much more sunburnt than the mainland Italians.

We hear the bell on the ship’s telegraph; there are shouts as the hawsers are slipped and the donkey engine takes them in. Expertly we move away from the quay; Tony and I finish the coffee and go to the ship’s rail. We turn slowly; clear of the harbour wall, we increase speed and the ship vibrates to the engines. There is that gorgeous sound of a ship slicing through warm waters. We leave the brown waters behind and soon are into the clear blue waters of the Bay of Naples. The city starts to recede, is gradually obscured by the heat haze. Capri lies about twenty-five kilometres ahead.

A few vest-clad crewmen are moving about the ship, all looking rough and unshaved. They shout their conversations even when face to face. I always thought it made you go blind; apparently, it makes you go deaf.

“What did you say, Toni?”

“I feel sick.”

Oh, my God, she’s allergic to sea travel. She runs to the ladies and is in and out of there for the whole trip. What bloody luck. I breathe a sigh of relief as we pull up to the Marina Grande. We disembark, with me carrying Toni’s case and mine and Toni holding a handkerchief over her mouth. I ask a tourist guide for the nearest hotel; he points to one five minutes away.

“Albergo Grotta Azzurra,
signore
.”

“
Grazie, grazie
.”

We walk uphill to the hotel. Up a few steps in reception, a smiling old Italian greeted us. Are there any vacancies?
0, si, si, mollo
. Would we like “una camera matrimonia?” No no no, I say; we would like separate rooms with adjoining doors. “
Ah, si, si
.” We register in our own names, killing any breath of scandal. They are modest, old-fashioned, unpretentious rooms with a view of the sea. We didn’t know it, were totally ignorant, that this was the ‘poor’ part of the island. Further up on the far side, was where it was all happening, which we would in time find out – only, too late.

Befogged photo of Toni outside the Albergo Grotta Azzurra