The Italian Affair (14 page)

The timing of Dan and Issy’s food could not have been more spectacular. Just as Pasquale left them, their spaghetti with clams arrived.

And they both dug in. The hunger, the fear they’d lived with all day and the superbly fresh taste of the clams and seasoned spaghetti meant that they didn’t say another thing to each other until the fishy flesh from inside the oval-shaped brown shells and the spaghetti had been eaten and the Ischian white wine Biancolella had been drunk.

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Despite being 10 o’clock, the restaurant was still filling up. Tempting though it might have been to people-watch they decided sleep took precedent. As soon as they finished their wine they asked the waiter for the bill.

“I would normally suggest a quick walk around the harbor to soak up the atmosphere but I think we should head straight back to the hotel,” Dan said. “You look totally worn out. It shouldn’t take us long before we are tucked up in our beds.”

“Ok” said Issy compliantly. “We can do more sightseeing and stuff tomorrow. I’d love to explore a bit more but I tend to agree we probably need some sleep now.”

As they both got onto the Vespa, Dan shouted above the engine and the street noise. “Ok, hold on tight, the hotel we’re going to sits high on that piece of volcanic rock over there that protrudes out into the sea so you need to cling onto me. I don’t want to lose you. Not here and certainly not today.”

“It looks like a castle” said Issy looking upwards whilst holding on as tight as she could as Dan revved the engine and they made their way down a narrow road that linked the island to the castle.

“Our hotel is next to Castello Aragonese that’s the name of it. Oh and before we get there” said Dan suddenly remembering something. “It’s the only hotel on the island I know really well. It’s really quaint and the bedrooms have the most amazing views. But before we get there you should know something that might spook you a bit?”

“What” shrieked Issy. “I hope it‘s not something bad?”

“It depends” replied Dan “on how you react to what I’m just about to tell you.” Dan took a deep breath, and slowly explained. “There is a cemetery of nuns within the Castle and therefore pretty much at the hotel. The place where we’re staying used to be a monastry. When the nuns died they were sat on chairs in a chamber until their bodies wasted away and they were just skeletons.”

“What?” shrieked Issy unsure how Dan could possibly be driving in the direction of somewhere so macabre given the day they’d both had.

“Don’t worry you heard correctly the first time,” Dan said apologetically. “I’ve never really given it much thought before now. But given the day we’ve had I have to tell you about it before you read it when we arrive. There is lots of information available so you may as well hear it from me first. Apparently, they sat the nuns on chairs to prove that the body is just a vehicle for carrying the soul and that the physical form is temporary.”

“That sounds about right speaking from bitter experience” said Issy sardonically.

“I actually found it really interesting the first time I found out about it,” Dan continued. “But it kind of doesn’t fit with the day we’ve just had. If this is making you feel uncomfortable, we’ll have to find somewhere else. We can quite easily turn back. I’m sorry I only just remembered because of everything else that’s been going on.”

“It makes me feel more than BLOODY uncomfortable Dan,” Issy said with a sigh. “But it’s those that live that frighten me more than those who’ve died. I don’t want to start looking for another hotel. Let’s carry on. At least if it’s a cemetery it will be sacred ground and in Italy that may mean that we’re safe.”

As she said those last words Issy turned her head in the opposite direction to the one they were travelling to. “Safe from what?” asked Dan afraid now that someone might be following them.

“Nothing – it’s absolutely nothing. I’m just jumping at shadows. Don’t worry let’s get to the hotel and forget about it,” Issy said in as controlled a voice as possible.

And yet despite her denial Issy had seen another vespa following behind them which had pulled off the road out of view as soon as she’d turned her head.

While Dan had slept on the boat, Issy had also felt a similar presence lurking in the shadows but had said nothing because she’d promised him she would not talk about the murder.

“God,” she thought to herself as they continued up towards the hotel with a cemetery. “When and how is the nightmare going to end?” All she’d done was tried to help a dying man and now she seemed to be paying the price all over again.

As dark shadows jumped inside her head, she shivered and sank one side of her face into Dan’s back to try and block out the thoughts that now plagued her mind obsessively on a never ending loop. She looked out to the vast velvety black sea that seemed both endless and threatening under the dark night sky.

But there was no relief there either. Dancing images of contorted faces appeared on the surface. They seemed to come from the nunnery high above.

As Issy closed her eyes and tried hard to change her thought patterns ghoulish shapes were replaced by images of the Adonis pulling her from the dying man, the blood seeping out onto the pavement and then further into the road following them as they ran away from it. As they entered the hotel gates she screamed silently in the hope that by tomorrow she would wake up and find that today had only been a dream.

Ischia – 8.00 am local time 24 September 1986

Dan
had been absolutely right about the views. “Mama Mia,” shouted Issy as she opened the wooden shutters in her bedroom as far as they would go to appreciate the full beauty of her magnificent unending view.

The sea had transformed overnight from something that was dark and menacing into a stunning turquoise expanse which shimmered under a full sun bursting with pearls of light.

Beyond the sea were white sandy beaches, green and lush mountains and a variety of indigenous flora and fauna. It was like a little slice of paradise framed by pale wooden shutters.

They’d obviously travelled quite a way up last night thought Issy as she looked down at the drop beneath her. The vertical view was just as breathtaking as the horizontal one. Peppered with ancient walls and little archways, the islands seemed voluptuously fertile and Ischia Porto itself was dotted with orange and blue fishing boats and yachts resting in the harbour.

Dan had told her that the hills around Ischia were full of olive groves and lemons and that the reason the island was so fertile and green was because it was formed out of volcanic rock.

“How utterly idyllic,” Issy thought as she breathed in the organic perfume of citrus with her face turned towards the sunlight.

The silence of the morning was interrupted by quiet knocking “Are you awake?” whispered Dan through a small keyhole in the old wooden slatted door to Issy’s bedroom.

“Yes. I’ve just got up.” Issy whispered back opening letting him in. “You were right about the views, they’re amazing.”

“I know” replied Dan as he studied her face for signs of distress before adding. “Hopefully just being here and seeing this will calm you. Did you sleep ok? The nun story didn‘t put you off I hope?”

“No. Not from sleeping. It put me off coming here last night when you first mentioned it, but I slept like a baby and if I dreamt of anything I don’t remember it now” she lied.

She had to lie. Dan would be worried if he knew the thoughts that had run through her mind for most of the night. First it had been the dead bodies of nuns sitting upright through rigor mortis, skeletal from the process of death. Then there was the furious running and pounding down streets that had biblical names, quickly followed by the gargoyles above her head that had laughed and goaded her as she ran. And then worse, more familiar faces had come into her consciousness causing her to waken repeatedly with familiar feelings of loss.

Jeremy on the punt in Oxford, smiling down at her as he tried to steer the boat in a straight line before it crashed into the river bank. Both of them panicking as it started to sink amongst the water reeds, their faces disappearing from view forever immortalised as one.

And then finally, the face of her father had come to her in a dream in a way it had never done previously. She saw and touched his face once more just as she had done as the warmth had left his body on that fateful day long ago. Shockingly it was vividly real and unchanged by time. As the image receded, Issy had felt a finality in the pit of her stomach. She’d sat up in bed aghast that she would never ever see him again – it was a thought she had NEVER EVER allowed herself to think before.

All she’d had over the last fifteen years were a few memories from long ago that she struggled to remember clearly. And it was at this point in her dreams that Issy had turned her face into her pillow to block out the unpalatable truth. That her father was never ever coming back and neither was Jeremy – a double loss, of such heavy magnitude that waking had become more of a nightmare than the nightmare itself.

And it was the remnants of those dreams that Issy was piecing together as she stood in front of Dan that morning. Despite the trauma, Issy tried her best to appear as normal as possible but she could see from Dan’s face that he intuitively knew what sat behind the mask and looked perplexed.

He grabbed her hands. “Ok come on. Let’s not waste the day. We can go and get a coffee and some breakfast and then we’ll be free to explore the island, sample the thermal waters and eat more seafood al fresco.”

“Sounds good,” Issy replied trying really hard to sound enthusiastic. “It’s far too nice a day to hang around. Let’s eat quickly and get to the beach before it gets too hot.”

To get to the breakfast area within the hotel which, they’d been told the night before, was going to be served out on the terrace overlooking Ischia Porto they had to climb down some steep stone steps that looked like they had been hewn out of the rock face that led them to a wide open terrace.

“Let’s go and sit over there in the sun,” said Issy as she walked across a stone-flagged courtyard to a wrought iron rusty table with bright red geraniums sitting jauntily on the stone balustrade facing the sea.

“Look at that view,” enthused Dan walking with her and then hanging his body over the stone terrace “it’s simply magnificent. I love early mornings like this, when the sun is just coming up and there is hardly anyone around.”

“I know and today I can’t wait to get into the sea,” said Issy looking for a waiter. “Maybe we should just help ourselves to the food. Look there’s an old wooden table through there that looks like it has got breakfast on it.”

“Breakfast,” exclaimed Dan as they walked back on themselves having bagged a table. “It looks like it has got breakfast, lunch and dinner on it. It’s literally groaning with food and as you would expect the nectar from the fresh ingredients is simply mind blowing look at the sheer variety as well.”

To one side of the table sat cured hams, salamis with peppercorn centers (salami the Neapolitan way), mozzarella (from the buffalo naturally) interlaced with slices of the ripest juiciest tomatoes, hard cheeses and soft cheeses, eggs, olives and sun dried tomatoes in brightly coloured ceramic bowls.

On the opposite side were large slices of watermelon, bowls of the sweetest smelling peaches, large bunches of green and black grapes and a selection of, oils, vinegars and baskets filled with different types of warm bread.

On a smaller table in there corner sat bottles of fresh juices. Lemon juice sweetened with sugar, blood red orange juice from Sicily, fresh melon juice, fresh grapefruit juice and last but by no means least the rich aroma of coffee wafting from the direction of the Gaggia coffee machine.

“God, you know the best places to eat. The food here looks and smells so organic and fresh,” Issy squealed as she heaped cheese, hams and pieces of fruit onto her plate. “You’ve surpassed yourself again with your choice of hotel restaurant. I would never find places like this if it wasn’t for you.”

“You would if you looked hard enough,” Dan laughed. “It’s just a case of asking the locals and not solely relying on information from the tourist guides as that is what everyone does. Oh my God, Issy you have to taste this,” Dan said holding up a glass of fresh peach juice as they walked back to their table.

“That is simply amazing,” replied Issy “it is the nectar from the Gods.”

“I assume you mean the Greek Gods?” Dan joked as they sat back down at their table which was awash with sun light piercing through the last of the early morning low clouds.

“Here, take my shades you’ll need them to eat your food” said Dan as he started to devour the cured hams and slices of salami on his plate squinting in the sunlight. “And….you’ll be pleased to know,” he said in between mouthfuls “that after I left you last night I spent a lot of time making plans for how we should spend the rest of the day.”

“As always,” replied Issy pulling the seeds from a slice of pink watermelon “I have come to expect nothing less from you. So don’t keep me in suspense what’s on the itinerary today?”

“Well,” Dan said with a big smile on his face. “After we’ve finished breakfast and drunk our Capuchins we’ll take the Vespa to the harbour, buy a newspaper and then go to a quiet little beach I know in a little town called Sant’Angelo.”