seven

I was late for Grant’s party, and could see from the cliff above the beach that tables had been laid end to end, and that a crowd had already gathered, most of them forming a circle around Grant.

Being shy, I admired those who were not. And Rupert Grant was blessed in this regard, having a robust outwardness that would have been trying had it not been modified by a Scots wryness and general British sense of cool. He stood with a drink in hand, in the midst of some amusing anecdote. His white hair, a Pentecostal flame, leaped above his head. Shoeless, he wore a long-sleeved, flowing, chalky blue shirt, in the style of a Russian mujik. The girls, as he called them, were at either side, his attendant muses, beautiful and subdued, while Vera wandered at the edge of the crowd, by herself. The scene made my stomach clench.

That her husband diverted himself with younger women right under her nose could not have made her life easy. I had searched her face for signs of anxiety or resentment, expecting a great deal of repressed anger; but little presented itself, apart from the occasional sly or cutting remark. Looking back, I wonder how I managed to navigate this situation. Certainly I wanted to fit in, and suppressed any complicated feelings about the Grant marriage, accepting their arrangement as simply a fact of life. I told myself that worldly people didn’t trouble themselves with such things as conventional morality. Everything I’d been led to believe about love and marriage was put on hold as I strode forward into this brave old world.

Though Grant was close now, my attention was absorbed by Holly Hampton. She tossed her head back, laughing, reacting strongly to Grant’s witticisms. To me, she seemed entirely beautiful in a boyish way. Just the outline of her body intrigued me: the odd, quirky angle of her hips, the way her head cocked slightly to one side as she listened. Her wrists dangled, and she had a quick smile and distinctive laugh. I liked the deep part in her hair, which revealed a lovely white strip of scalp.

Occasionally one can tell a lot about someone on brief acquaintance, and this was true for me with Holly. It had not surprised me, for instance, when I learned that her mother was from Philadelphia’s Main Line. (You didn’t usually meet English girls called Holly.) But her education and upbringing had been wholly British. She was obviously the product an English public school, and her aloof manner had been perfected at Lady Margaret Hall, her Oxford college. Even the physical mannerisms were British and class-specific, as when she held her arms around herself as she stood back to listen with her head tilted to one side. There was an aura of composure and self-assurance that, at its worst, veered toward complacency. At its best, it was reassuring; Holly knew her place in the world, and the place of those around her.

“God, we’re surrounded by Yanks,” Grant said, having caught sight of me. He beckoned over a burly man of fifty with a salt-and-pepper beard, drawing me urgently toward him. “Dominick,” he said, “this is my new assistant, Lorenzo. He’s from New York.”

“Pennsylvania,” I said.

“Dom Bonano,” the man said, holding out his hand. “Let me guess. You wanna be a writer.”

I simply smiled.

Bonano pushed his large, irregular face ahead of him like a cart full of groceries, his nose only a few inches from mine. “I guessed it just by looking. I must be a genius or something.” He blew his nose in a handkerchief. “Allergies, excuse me,” he said. “This is the worst time of year for that, all the flowers. The island is lousy with flowers.”

I felt desperate to get away from him, but there was no easy exit.

“What kind of stuff do you write?” he wondered.

“Poetry,” I said. “I’m thinking of a novel.”

“Thinking, huh? Listen up, Larry. Everybody wants to write a novel, but if it was so easy, everybody would do it. There would be five million new fucking novels on the shelf every year.”

“Alex,” I said. “My name is Alex.”

“Alex what?”

“Massolini.”

He brightened. “A paisano! Just what we need in Capri, more goddamn wops.” He asked where my family came from—a habit common among Italian Americans, who are forever prodding in the dark of their past for signs of origin, aware that place and legitimacy are somehow connected.

“My father’s parents came from Naples,” I said. “My mother’s were from Calabria.”

“Naples is great,” he said, “but it’s run-down. Full of pickpockets and hustlers. Mine were from Palermo. The cousins love to come here, visit their cugino Americano. Christ, they love it.” I had been slowly backing away from him, but he pushed close again, speaking in a low voice. “I hate to be the one to break the news, Al, but there’s no point in writing novels. Nobody wants them. Not like when Hemingway was king, and when it was really something to write a novel. Not anymore.” He sniffed again, rubbing his nose. “Not that I’m writing literature myself. I just tell a good story. There’s always an audience for a whopping good tale.” He seemed to be saying, the critics seem to have forgotten that Dickens and Balzac were storytellers first and foremost.

Bonano’s face held my attention like a car wreck. The nose was mottled and bulbous. His black eyebrows would not lie down. The general manner reminded me of my Uncle Vinnie, my father’s younger brother. The business he pursued had something to do “with electronics” (so he said). Although he maintained a large Victorian house in West Pittston, with a portico and magnificent view of the Susquehanna River, Vinnie spent most of his time on the road, in New York and Miami, where he stayed in suites at glitzy hotels. He bought a new Lincoln Continental, usually with a soft top and white leather seats, every other year. His wife, Gloria, would not be caught dead without a string of pearls around her neck. In winter, she draped herself in mink; summer, it was silk all the way. (Soon after I left Columbia, I got an unexpected call from my uncle. “You want to go into electronics,” he said, “you call your Uncle Vinnie. I could use a smart boy like you.”)

“You come over and see me soon,” Bonano said. He scribbled his number on a piece of paper and pushed it into my shirt pocket. “You’d like my daughter, Toni. She’s a college girl, Bryn Mawr.”

“A good school,” I said.

“You bet your ass. She’s in psychology. Reads Freud all the time. Every time she opens her mouth, that stuff comes tumbling out. This complex and that complex. Oedipus and Electra. I hate that shit, but what do I know?” He looked around, as if afraid someone would overhear us. “Hey, she’ll be here in a couple months.”

I kept a neutral expression. As with Vinnie, you couldn’t give a man like Bonano too much ground or he would eat you alive.

“You call me now. Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Good boy, Al.”

“Alex,” I said.

“Got it,” he said, then tapped me on the shoulder and walked away.

“He’s death,” said an English voice behind me. I turned to see the kindly face of a man in his sixties, lean and tan. “I don’t know why Rupert invited him. The brotherhood of fiction, I assume.”

“Rupert seems to like him,” said Vera, appearing beside the Englishman. “You’ve met Peter, I see?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“Peter Duncan-Jones,” he said. There was a natural warmth about him that I liked at once.

“He’s an admirer of yours,” said Vera.

“Oh?”

“Your paintings—the ones at the villa,” I fumbled for the rest of the sentence, “caught my eye.”

“A good eye, I should say.”

“Be careful,” Vera cautioned him. “Alex is American. He’ll think you are being serious.”

“I am serious, darling. If I can’t adore me, who will?”

“Indeed.”

An old Etonian, Duncan-Jones wore a paisley cravat, a navy blazer, and white trousers with cuffs: the look typical of English stockbrokers on holiday. A family signet ring adorned the little finger on one hand, the mark of a gentleman.

“We call him Picky, for Picasso,” Vera put in, repeating what she had told me before just to annoy him.

You call me Picky,” he said. “Nobody else on this planet finds that amusing, Vera.” He turned toward me directly, and I felt worried about Vera. She seemed unable to get a purchase on the company. “You might like to see my studio, Alex,” said Duncan-Jones, jotting his number on a matchbook and stuffing it into my shirt pocket. “It would be an honor.” He explained that his companion, Jeremy, had gone to London for a few days, but he would also be glad to meet me. “Jeremy is a social butterfly,” he said. “Flit, flit, flit.”

That everyone craved my company puzzled me. I had accomplished nothing, and whatever charms I might possess were still hidden. Now and then I rose to my own defense, but I felt more acted upon than acting, afraid to make my wishes known. As I soon learned, however, any new resident on Capri attracted attention, at first. Once the honeymoon was over, they would leave you in peace, especially if they considered you the worst of all possible creatures, a bore.

Patrice leaned heavily on my shoulder, materializing like Ariel in Prospero’s cell. I thought again how uncannily he resembled my brother: not just the smile, but the sharp face and pointed chin. They were both slender but somehow sturdy, rather androgynous, though Nicky had gone to great lengths to override this trait. He had been at various times a weight lifter, a karate expert, a motorcyclist, and a football player (briefly, during junior high—much to my father’s delight). He would do anything to insist upon his manhood.

“I am not introduce,” Patrice said, breaking my reverie.

“I didn’t see you!”

“But I wasn’t here, mon ami. When I come here, now you see me. Modern physics!”

Patrice, who had already drunk too much, giggled like a schoolboy.

“Who is your friend?” asked Duncan-Jones. Patrice had drawn his full attention. After the briefest introduction, I left him in the painter’s avid care.

“He’s such a chicken hawk,” said Vera, “but I do love him.”

“Are you all right?” I wondered.

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“You seemed a little sad.”

She looked at me harshly, and I realized I had opened a box that she preferred to keep shut. Changing the subject, she seized my arm. Her agenda for me was powerful, and she used me to divert herself as we moved from Milanese publisher to Greek fabric designer to Russian countess, the names or titles mostly lost on my unsophisticated ears. Only Count Eddie von Bismarck, the grandson of Otto, left a dent in my memory—how could one forget that name? Ego was vividly on display everywhere as dusk settled and all heavenly and earthly bodies swelled. There were supernovas and falling stars, asteroids and moons; every major celestial object had a swirl of light around it, but the whole event most evidently reflected the pull of Rupert Grant, a mysterious field-force that attracted everyone who encountered him.

Suddenly Grant’s voice rose above the crowd. “Vera! Where is Vera?”

The next thing I knew, she was racing toward him. The call of her husband was primal, and she clearly lived for his attention.

Marisa Lauro appeared at my elbow. “You are enjoy yourself?” she asked.

“It’s fine,” I said.

She eyed me carefully. “Vera, she likes you.”

“I hope so.” I could see she was a little drunk, and this seemed unappealing.

“But Rupert,” she said, “he isn’t so sure.”

This surprised and unsettled me. Had Grant already formed a negative opinion of me? Had he actually communicated his dislike to Marisa? The scenario was unlikely, and I suspected Marisa of playing some game with me.

“Don’t let me worry you,” she said. “I wasn’t meaning that. You are very sweet to me.”

I was eager to shift the subject. “What brought you to Capri?”

“As Rupert has told, I am a journalist,” she said.

“Whom do you write for?”

“Nobody. This is my future, this career.”

“I see.”

Her blouse was too short, exposing a patch of bare belly. My eyes gravitated there, but Marisa seemed not to mind. That was, after all, the purpose of the blouse.

“We should be friends,” she said, touching my arm.

I was relieved when a young Italian man with a gold chain around his neck called to Marisa.

“You must excuse,” she said, rushing off.

In the distance, I noticed Holly walking in the direction of the Faraglioni. Emboldened by the wine, I followed, catching up with her around a bend. She sat on a rock looking out to sea, as in a painting. The vermilion light streaked from the sky into the water.

“What a sunset,” I said.

She gulped, putting a hand over her throat. “You mustn’t!”

“Mustn’t?”

“You startled me.”

“I’m sorry. May I join you?”

“It’s a free country.”

This wasn’t exactly the welcome I hoped for, but I crouched beside her. “Do you like the party?”

“Quite a collection,” she said. “The island attracts them.”

“It attracted us.”

“How terribly flattering.”

“Will you stay here long?” I asked.

“On this rock?”

“On Capri.”

“I have no plans,” she said.

Every response she made closed a door, and I had to search for another entry. “You do research for him?” I asked, regretting the question before it had left my mouth.

Her look darkened. “You think I do nothing but fuck him, is that right?”

“I didn’t mean—”

“You did,” she interrupted. “To be frank, Rupert asks very little of me, professionally. I believe he likes my company.”

I scampered onto safer ground. “So you were raised in England?”

“You make me sound like a heifer,” she said. “But the answer is yes. My parents met at Oxford. He’s a psychologist, at All Souls—that’s a research college in Oxford.” (As I learned from Vera, Sir Richard Hampton was the author of several important books on public policy and mental health.) “What about your parents?” she asked.

“My father runs a construction business. It was started by my grandfather, Alessandro.”

“A patriarchy,” she said.

“You should meet my mother before you make too many assumptions.”

She seemed, for the first time, interested in something I had said, and asked about my poetry.

“I’m serious about it,” I said carefully, “I want to write more poems, and better poems. For my own sake, really. I don’t care if I ever publish them. I mean that.”

“That sounds reasonable,” she said.

“What about your novel?” I asked.

“I don’t usually talk about it.”

“Talk anyway.”

She sighed. “You don’t give up, do you?”

“It wouldn’t be in character,” I said.

This provoked the tiniest smile. “It’s set on Capri,” she said, “before the war. The Great War. That’s one reason I came here.”

“So you’re doing research for yourself?”

She concurred, but her response was curt. She regarded me as a hopeless case, I could tell. “I had better get back,” she said, shifting from the rock. “Rupert will miss me.”

I walked beside her, letting the crash of the surf fill in for conversation. Getting to know Holly was going to be difficult, but I felt a primitive urge to overcome that obstacle. I would not be brushed aside.

We rounded the point to see a bonfire, its flames billowing skyward. A number of shadowy figures danced around it, one of them banging a tambourine. Another stood at the side, playing a small accordion. The steep hillside above the beach had fallen into shadow, as had Mount Solaro—a brooding, almost invisible presence—more felt than seen. I found the scene strangely thrilling: the bonfire, the beach, the dancing. I had dropped mysteriously into a world so unlike anything in my previous experience that my nerves bristled with pleasure, electric.

Rupert Grant had joined the circle of dancers. I watched with interest as he raised his arms in the air like some parodic version of Zorba the Greek as Vera, seeming lonely, stood to one side, a drink in hand.

“What’s your impression of Rupert?” Holly asked, with surprising bluntness.

“I hardly know him,” I said. “But I’ve been reading him pretty intensely for the past month.”

“Reading what?”

“The novels, some of the poetry.” I felt defensive, as something in her tone suggested that she didn’t believe me.

Holly persevered. “So what do you think?”

“He’s good,” I said, unambiguously.

“How good?”

“Compared to what?”

Sensing my discomfort, she pressed no further. “He’s a remarkable man,” she said, more to herself than to me. “One mustn’t be too critical.”

“I believe that,” I said.

Impressionable at that age, when everything looked new and strange and freshly lit, I was ready to be convinced about any aspect of life, especially by Holly Hampton. Although many things suggested that life at the Villa Clio would not be easy, I intended to make my way in this particular world. As my brother put it: “You do what you got to do, Asshole. And you do it well.”