The Seven Sisters (29 page)

Of her group, only Julia Jordan has brought her own mobile, and clearly she has not had it switched on. Perhaps she has left it back at the hotel, in her voluminous baggage.

The sky is darkening, and the surface of Lake Avernus is gently ruffled. The cry of the birds has changed its note. The great golden arches and stony ruins of the temple of Apollo on the eastern shore are dim amidst their scaffolding.

Valeria returns to the table, calls for the bill, rounds up her charges, and plants in their willing and receptive heads the attractive notion of a siesta in the hotel followed by an evening foray. Replete, they clamber drowsily back into their minibus, and do not notice that Valeria has trouble with the ignition. The battery seems a little flat, which it has no right to be. The van starts, but reluctantly. It needs attention. Some sort of trouble is brewing. A difficulty has entered their smooth and joyous journey.

During the short drive home, Valeria decides that she will not tell them that they are wanted until after their siesta. They will feel stronger after a little lie-down. If the news is bad, they will be better able to take it. She will contact each of the three, individually, discreetly. She will not make any public announcement.

Valeria is convinced the news must be bad. But she is not wholly right. Some of the news is good, some is enigmatic, some is bad.

She speaks to Julia first, rightly guessing that her news might be of a professional nature.

Julia Jordan’s message is from her agent, and it is good. All of it is good news. An unexpected and surprisingly large repeat fee has been harvested from a public broadcasting company in the United States, a respectable deal is in the offing for her new Neapolitan drama, and the chief executive of Leone Films is in Naples and eager to meet her while she is in the neighbourhood. Julia’s stock is rising. Julia stays glued for some time to her own mobile, in deep and highly animated discussion, so Valeria leaves her to it, and advances along the corridor to rouse Cynthia and Candida.

Candida’s message is ambiguous. She does not know what to
make of it. The contact at Parnassus Tours tells her that a person called Andrew Wilton has rung the office and asked her to ring him about their daughter Ellen who is in hospital, though Mr Wilton had wished to emphasize that the daughter is not seriously ill. He has left a hospital number, which Mrs Wilton may also like to ring, if she wishes to inquire about her daughter. The hospital number appears, from its dialling code, to be neither in Finland, nor in England. It is not a country code that Candida recognizes. Candida sits on her hotel bed, and motions to Valeria to sit down by her. Valeria, sympathetically, sits.

It is too complicated to begin to explain to this recent acquaintance the long story of her cool and distant family relationships and separations, but Valeria does not need an explanation. She guesses at once from Candida’s response that this message is by way of a riddle. It is not a simple demand for action. It needs decoding.

Candida says she does not know what to do. She thinks it may even be a trick, or a hoax. It may be an attempt to ruin her holiday. She would not put that past Andrew. He would be capable of that. And, frankly, the thought of speaking to Andrew, the thought of ringing him and asking him for clarification, is in itself enough to destroy her valiant attempt at happiness. So what shall she do? Shall she ring the alleged hospital number?

Think about it, says Valeria. I’ll go to speak to Mrs Barclay while you think about it. I’ll ring the hospital for you if you like.

I haven’t the courage, moans Candida faintly.

I’ll be back in a minute, says Valeria, and strides on to Room 202 to deliver her third and last message.

This is the bad one. Cynthia Barclay rings Parnassus Tours, and is at first struck dumb by what she hears. Then she lets out a cry. Valeria hovers, anxiously. ‘Oh no,’ says Cynthia, from time to time, then hands the receiver to Valeria as she sinks onto her bedside chair. Valeria instantly gets the gist of what has happened, despite her colleague Marco’s confused, emotional and apologetic narration. Mrs Barclay’s husband has been assaulted and is in hospital, dangerously ill. There is no doubt about this. He is in St Mary’s, Paddington, and all the details are confirmed or confirmable. Here are the numbers,
here is the police incident number, here is the name of the officer at Ladbroke Grove Police Station. Marco also has it all by fax and by email. In short, Mrs Barclay is urgently needed, and should take the next flight home.

‘Oh God,’ moans Cynthia Barclay, ‘I should never have left him.’

She is in a state of shock. She has gone white under her tan and looks ten years older. Poor old boy, says Cynthia Barclay, poor, poor old boy. She clutches miserably at her frivolous hair.

Valeria is marvellous. Afterwards, they all agree that Valeria is marvellous. She is wonderful in a crisis. What would any of them have done, without Valeria? She informs the others of what has happened, she rings the airport, she soothes Cynthia. There is no direct flight from Naples available that night: there is an option via Milan, getting into Stansted in the early morning, but might it not be wiser to wait till the morning and fly direct? The morning flight is booked, indeed overbooked, but Valeria thinks she could wangle something. Valeria rings the British Consul in Naples. Cynthia rings St Mary’s Hospital, where at first nobody will speak to her, and then she tries the police station. Then Candida rings St Mary’s to check if Cynthia has understood what she was listening to. The hospital had not been wholly helpful, but in the end Candida manages to speak to somebody who seems to know what she is talking about. She is able to assure Cynthia that although Mr Barclay is in danger, it sounds as though he may well recover. He is not actually, to put it brutally, dying.

‘Oh God,’ moans Cynthia, ‘he’ll be so cross with me if I go rushing home. But I’ve got to go, I want to go. He won’t want me to go, but I
want
to go.’

‘You must do what you want,’ says Candida, envying her this simplicity.

With a little string-pulling, Valeria finds Cynthia a seat on an Eagle flight at 8.50 the following morning. Cynthia concedes that this is the best thing to do, the most sensible thing to do. Valeria will drive her to the airport, leaving the others to fend for themselves for the morning.

The mood of the comrades is sombre as they meet for a drink in the bar. The bar is dominated by an enormous television set showing
a football match between Napoli and Lazio. The vast square face of the set leans over them, aggressively, at a threatening angle. Although the hotel seems to have no other guests apart from three youths wearing jeans and guns, the management refuses to turn it off. Even the forceful and eloquent and finally abusive Valeria fails to quench it. It cannot be silenced. It yells on, high-pitched, like the unstoppable torment of a modern Hades. Eventually, it drives them out. They are not in a party mood, but they cannot sit in a room with that thing yelling at them. They will go down into town.

Valeria drives them down the hillside. The Bay of Naples glimmers in the distance, sweet in the night air. The old walls are blood red in the sunset. As the natural light fades, the floodlights pick up the arches and antiquities of Pozzuoli. They pass the amphitheatre and the temple of Serapis and the temples of Augustus and Neptune. They drive beneath a huge triumphal arch, which a gang of youthful Pozzuoli artists is busy spraying with elaborate graffiti, while studiously and conscientiously consulting a large cardboard graffiti-design template. Valeria finds a parking place down by the harbour, and they smell the salt sea and see the coarse cobalt-blue fishing nets draped upon the shore. They sit on the harbour wall for a moment, and stare up at the sky. Where are the Pleaides, the Seven Sisters? Are they to be dispersed? Then they walk up the Corso to the Piazza della Repubblica, through the bustle of the evening
passegiata
, and find themselves a table on a sidewalk beneath an elaborate stained-glass canopy.

The noise and bustle of humanity are soothing to them in their distress. Cynthia is calm now, resigned to her night of waiting, hopeful that Mr Barclay, who is a tough old boot, will fight back. ‘After all,’ says Cynthia, ‘we didn’t do too badly, Mr Barclay and me. I did my best for the old boy. He was well looked after. But I couldn’t be there around the clock, could I? And I couldn’t stop him going off on his wanderings, could I? He had the right. He needed a bit of excitement. I told him he was mad to go under the arches, but he wouldn’t listen, would he? He couldn’t help it.’

Cynthia Barclay nurses a beautiful misted goblet of cold blond beer. She raises a toast to Julia’s success. Then she applies herself to
the lesser problem of her friend Candida. She lays Candida’s problem upon the table before them all. What is Candida to do? Should she ring the hospital? Should she ring her ex-husband Andrew Wilton in Suffolk? Should she ring Ellen’s number in Finland to see if Ellen is there? Should one of the others ring Andrew for her? What does Candida think is really going on?

Candida finds that none of them thinks it odd that she had not immediately and spontaneously rung to inquire about Ellen. This is reassuring. They respect her hesitant diffidence. Candida says that she thinks Ellen would have contacted her directly had Ellen really wanted her mother to know where she was. Ellen would not have relied upon Andrew as a go-between, because she would have known how reluctant Candida would be to respond to any message from that quarter. So the likelihood is that Andrew is out to make trouble, is it not? Yes, the others nod in agreement. It seems that it might be so. But, even so, a phone call wouldn’t hurt, would it?

Well, yes, it might, says Candida. It might ruin her mood for the next fortnight. Unnecessarily. On the other hand, the mood had been ruined already, by the news about Mr Barclay from Notting Hill. And it may not be unnecessary. For Ellen, it is possible, may really want to hear from her mother. It is not impossible that she might want to hear from her mother.
Unlikely
, thinks Candida, but not
impossible
.

Candida looks dim and miserable, the dimmest of the stars.

It is Mrs Jerrold who speaks out, and this time in no sibylline tone. Mrs Jerrold says that Candida ought to ring somebody, right now, and that if she won’t, then she, Mrs Jerrold, will. I know what I’m talking about, says Mrs Jerrold. I lost touch with my only daughter for nearly twenty years. Through a stupid misunderstanding. It’s just not worth it, says Mrs Jerrold. Life’s too short.

So Candida is cajoled into trying the easiest option first. She rings her daughter’s home in Finland from Valeria’s mobile, from a sidewalk café in Pozzuoli, and receives a clear recorded message, in her daughter’s somewhat clipped, dry and forbidding voice. ‘Ellen Wilton is temporarily unable to take this call, please leave a message.’ None the wiser, Candida leaves no message.

Does Ellen herself have a mobile, inquires Valeria? She understands that everybody in Finland has at least one mobile. Finland is the home of the mobile.

Ellen may have a mobile, but, if she has, Candida doesn’t know its number. Mobiles are too modern for Candida.

The streets are full of strollers and idlers. Small children walk by, hand in hand with small grandparents. Motorbikes weave about on the Corso. Taxi drivers laugh and smoke in a cluster by their white cabs. The night air is benign. You would not think, sitting here, that this place was sinking slowly but inevitably and irreversibly under the water. But it is. It is not the new fashion of global warming that will sink Pozzuoli. It is an ancient natural phenomenon known as
bradisismo
, or, in English, ‘bradyseism’. It is related to volcanic activity. Valeria has explained it to them, and they think they have understood it. They won’t retain the explanation, but, for the moment, they have grasped it.

OK, says Candida, she will ring the hospital. Well, no, perhaps she won’t, she’ll ask Valeria to ring the hospital. Would Valeria mind?

The area code of the number given to Parnassus by Andrew is for Holland, Valeria says. For some reason, it seems that Ellen might be in Amsterdam. Valeria, fluent though she be in Italian, French, Spanish, English and Amharic, does not speak Dutch, but, as they all know, the Dutch speak English, so that won’t matter. Candida, by this time, has acquired a little Dutch courage from a glass of grappa, and she is alert and attentive at the sober Valeria’s elbow as the call goes through. It goes through instantly. It is amazing that one can phone a hospital in Amsterdam from a sidewalk café in Pozzuoli.

The phone rings, and the group listens, eagerly, holding its breath, as Valeria inquires if there is a Miss Ellen Wilton on any of their wards. There is a very short silence, and then Valeria’s face lights up as a connection is made. ‘Miss Wilton?’ she says, in her delightful low guttural English. ‘Miss Wilton? I am ringing for your mother, in Italy – yes, your mother – would you like to speak to your mother?’

This is a risky question, for what if she says no? But she doesn’t say no, and Candida, taken by surprise, finds herself speaking directly across the whole of the continent to her own daughter. Her
knees beneath the table have turned to water and her heart is pounding with fear.

But Ellen sounds quite calm. ‘Mum?’ she says. ‘Is that really you, Mum? Where on earth are you?’

‘In Pozzuoli.’

‘Where on earth is that?’

‘Near Naples.’

‘What on earth are you doing there?’

‘What on earth are you doing in Amsterdam?’

The group can hear Ellen laugh. It is a natural, responsive, normal laugh. They sigh with relief. It is all going to be OK, after all.

‘I’m having an operation. Well, I’ve had the operation. It’s over now. What for? Did you say what for? Do you remember that business with my cartilage? After that stupid ski disaster when I went into that tree stump? I’ve been having it fixed. What do you mean, why? Oh, you mean why Amsterdam? Because he’s the right man for the job. He’s the Achilles-tendon man. I’ve got a month off work. Yes, it’s all going fine. And why are you ringing me out of the blue like this? Yes, of course I’m all right, what about you? You sound very odd. Are you all right? There’s a lot of background noise. Can you hear me? I can’t hear you any more. Look, ring me again tomorrow, yes, any time, they don’t care what you do here, it’s a wonderful hospital, it’s liberty hall here – I said, it’s a
wonderful hospital
– damn, I’m losing you. Mum? Hey, Mum? Damn it, she’s gone.’