Memoirs 06 - Peace Work Page 19

  No signs of Toni, no sign with an arrow saying ‘Toni 3 chilometri’. I sit me down at a café, making sure people see my painting equipment. Today I want people to know I am a great artist. Tomorrow I’d be Bing Crosby again and, who knows, the day after Jimmy Cagney. For a few moments I’m Billy Bunter and order an ice-cream, then back to Van Gogh again. I’m taking my first spoonful when a pair of small, cool hands from behind me clasp over my eyes. It’s Toni, she is smiling effusively. Ah, Toni, love of my life, see this masterpiece! She looks at my painting. “Very pretty,” she says and I reward her with an ice-cream. What has she bought? She delves into her shopping bag and shows me two silk scarves, “One for my mother, one for Lily and this,” she takes out a little velvet heart-shaped pincushion, “this for Gioia.” Nothing for me? Not even a silk headscarf?

  “You only do one painting?” she says.

  “No, I’ve done two.”

  Oh, can she see it? Yes, if she dives off the three-hundred-foot cliffs.

  After the ice-cream, neither of us feels like lunch. Shall we take out customary swim and I’ll show her once again my aquatic trick? She’ll love my standing-on-head-legs-out-of water bit. Crossing the piazza, we meet the Fosters. They’ve been to the Blue Grotto.

  “It was a jolly nice trip,” says Mrs Foster.

  “And so cheap,” he added.

  Yes, I agreed; things were cheaper here than on the mainland, but a man of my wealth wouldn’t notice that.

  We bid them adieu and after collecting our costumes, we swim from our little beach. It’s deserted again. Toni has bought a small bottle of olive oil. God, I wanted to top up my suntan. I rub it all over and smell like a mixed salad. Toni wants some rubbed on her back. Nowhere else? I fall asleep in the sun, wondering what the poor people are doing. My poor father is possibly at work and my poor mother doing laundry, that’s what the poor were doing. Toni is talking: can I see if there are any jellyfish around? Can I go in and see if they are stinging? I swim under water and announce from the sea that it is free of jellyfish but, ah ha, there’s me in it now – watch out for the groper fish, dear. I display my speed at the crawl and I’m Johnny Weismuller for a while. Remember the drill: three foot kicks with every one arm stroke. Little does the world know that I represented Chislehurst Laundry, Lewisham in the All-Laundry Swimming Championships of 1936, and won! And back I was again on the Monday, washing all the shitty sheets from Lewisham Hospital.

  Toni gives a shriek and in a froth of water swims for the shore. Something touched her, she looks a bit touched. She thinks it was a jellyfish. I do more underwater scouting – all I can see are bits of seaweed. No, she won’t go in again. We dry ofT, make for the hotel and an afternoon siesta. It’s very warm now. I doze with nothing on save a sheet over me. Reflected in the mirror, I look like a corpse. Was there nothing in the world that would fill me out? I’d tried Horlicks and Sanatogen, Phosperine, cod liver oil and malt, queen bee jelly, arrowroot, Virol, Dr Collins’ Enervate Mixture – with the list becoming endless, I fall into a ziz.

  When I awake, it’s dark. I’ve missed tea. I rush around, shower, dress and contact Miss Fontana. “I come your room at tea-time, but you sleep so I no wake you,” she says. Has she had tea? Yes, it was very nice, thank you. She had it with Lieutenant Foster and his wife who had told her things were cheaper on Capri than the mainland.

  “Where shall we have dinner tonight?” I ask her.

  She smiles and shrugs her shoulders. I wonder where she means.

  “Where you like to go,” she says.

  I shrug my shoulders and that doesn’t get either of us anywhere. Shrugging shoulders rarely does. After a few minutes of mutual shrugging we decide to eat in our hotel. Again the dining-room is empty, the poor waiters standing like gloomy sentinels. At our appearance, they breathe a sigh of relief. With a fixed-menu smile, Mario takes our orders. Yes, tonight’s speciality is spaghetti Neapolitan. My night’s speciality will be Toni Fontana. She can eat spaghetti so neatly, while I have great strings of it hanging out of my mouth that need cutting with scissors. In come the ‘Jolly Decent’ Fosters who, no doubt, are eating here tonight as it’s cheaper than Naples. They have been on a boat trip to Sorrento and it was, as he said, “absolutely spiffing.” What had we been doing? I said we’d been for a ‘jolly good’ swim. It’s remarkably quiet, the only sound is the clanking of our forks and spoons touching the plates. This is amplified when the Fosters start to eat. I start to laugh at how strange it sounds, like Siamese music. Toni wants to know why I am laughing. How can I answer? We hear the chef shouting in the kitchen, the food must be deaf.

  After dinner Lieutenant Foster and his wife want us to have a drink with them. What a ‘jolly good’ idea. We join them at their table. Why not go outside on the terrace? Yes, it’s a warm night. The Fosters are very ‘nice’ people. You can tell by his demeanour that he banks at Cox & Kings, she shops at Fortnum & Mason’s and he rides to hounds. He’s definitely on the defensive when I say I think foxhunting is cruel.

  “Well, someone’s got to keep them down, old boy.”

  “Are you a farmer?”

  “No, I was a stockbroker.”

  “I’m baffled as to how stockbrokers are worried by foxes.”

  “No, no, it’s the farmers. That’s why they let us hunt on their land.”

  “But you personally aren’t bothered by them?”

  “No.”

  “Why doesn’t the farmer do the hunting?”

  “Because we do.”

  “Supposing you weren’t there?”

  “Oh, well, we are.”

  “But supposing you weren’t?”

  “But we are, ha ha ha.”

  Yes, we are, ha ha ha – no bloody use appealing to his conscience.

  “They eat an awful lot of chickens,” she says.

  “So do we,” I say.

  But they can’t be moved. One can only pray they fall off their horses and break their bloody necks. Toni and I bid our goodnight, leaving a slightly strained atmosphere and a feeling that I was now a persona non grata. The question at this romantic hour is am I persona grala with Toni? With an unspoken yes, we get into bed and go back to the beginning of time…In the small hours a very small Milligan crawls out of Toni’s bed, clutching its clothes wearing nothing save its underpants. I make sure the corridor’s clear, I tippy-toe to my door. I’ve locked myself out and haven’t got the key. I have to dress and wake the porter for the passkey. I shake him gently in his chair. “Chesosava,” he splutters; then I notice his teeth are in a glass on a table. He turns his back and clicky-clacks them back into place. He opens my door and soon I’m in bed and rapidly asleep. I’m not asleep very long when I wake with the runs and that continues through the night. It gets so bad I realize it’s silly to go back to bed, better to sleep on the loo.

  It’s ten o’clock in the morning when I hear Toni tapping on the door. “Enlrare,” I say, when I should say “Enteritis.” I don’t tell her I’ve got the shits; someone who sings like Bing Crosby shouldn’t have them. I tell her I don’t feel well. Would I like her to sit with me? God, no, I want her out of the room before the next series of explosions starts. Can she order me something to eat? Tea and toast? She leaves just before I have an attack of postern blasts. I keep the bedclothes tucked tightly round. Mario arrives with a tray and my food. I’m ill? He’s sorry. He will be if he stays here.

  All through the day shattering explosions shake the room. Please, God, nobody come in except the deaf and those with anosmia. My God, I’m shaking the windows – all this wind power going to waste. Connected up, I could run a windmill. Between the shits, I doze fitfully but have to be on the alert to avoid skidmarks on the sheets. What has caused it? They say Capri water is not that safe, perhaps that’s it. By late evening it’s eased off and I’m about half a stone lighter. Toni comes in. How am I? Feeling a bit better; where has she been? She went to buy some more postcards and had a swim. No, I’m not getting up – I don’t want to clear
the hotel. Yes, I’ll have some more tea and toast. I can keep it down but can’t keep it in. This time the waitress brings in my order. She’s a young Capri girl, beautifully simple, dark and vivacious. She smiles.

  “Lascia qui,” I say, tapping my bedside table.

  She smiles again, nods her head. “Ecco,” she says.

  My God, has she heard the echoes? It must have escaped under the door! I eat my frugal fare (frugals are good for you!). It’s been an exhausting day, I’ve done about ten miles of running and feel hollow. The toilet seat has never been allowed to grow cold. I fall asleep and I don’t wake till the sun is shining. I move cautiously in my bed – am I better? I get up and bath without any alarms; so far, so good. I cough without any disasters. Yes, I think I can sally forth and mix with safety. Before I do, Toni arrives. She looks lovely in a simple cotton dress with thin red horizontal stripes – she is so brown.

  “Come,” she says and takes my hand. She leads me to a table on the terrace. “This is our last day.”

  I thought that yesterday. It had gone so quick, like I was going all yesterday.

  After breakfast we get to the piazza and take a landau for a ride to Anacapri again, this time in the white gasping sunshine. As we drive to the hypnotic, lazy clip-clop of the horse, the view is all-revealing. We can see the sea on each side of the island; to our left rises Mount Salaro, topped by a ruined caslello and pinpricked with white cottages. The flowers are in riot – blue, white, red, yellow, purple. It’s a painter’s paradise. How terrible to be struck blind on an island like this. “Eet is too, too beautiful,” says Miss Fontana, shaking her little head in disbelief. So far, except for the shits and not seeing Gracie Fields, the holiday has been perfect. I tell the driver not to hurry. “Piano, piano,” I say, which has all the effect of rapping with a damp sponge on a window. I stand up and tap him on the shoulder. “Piano, piano, per favore,” I say-He tells me, “Non posso.”

  It’s a fixed-speed horse; if he lets it go slower, it will (a) stop (b) die.

  The road veers towards the right of the island and then turns inward. Strewn before us on the plain is Anacapri and its gleaming houses of white, pink and sky blue. Toni says they look like “Case di bambole!”. The road descends and we finally reach the end of it as it terminates in the square. The horse looks as though he’s going to terminate as well. We buy some apples from a stall and feed them to him. The driver looks at them longingly, so we feed the driver as well. Adjacent to us is a small café with several official guides with armbands sitting at tables, drinking rough wine and playing rough dominoes. As I have no idea which direction to take for a walk, I go over to them and ask for a guide. They all stand up, then start to argue about whose turn it is. Toni and I stand like idiots for five minutes while the argument rages. One by one they drop out and finally one comes forward. He’s short, about fifty, wearing a peaked cap with a badge that looks like a clenched fist. He has a face like a clenched fist with a large clenched nose. He has a silver-grey stubble, a shave away from being a beard and ears that are really supports for his hat. When he stands up to his full height, you can see he hasn’t any. He has a huge head whose weight must account for his bow legs. Yes, he’ll show us a walk but can we wait while he finishes his dominoes. While we wait, Toni and I have a caffelatte and magnificent gooey pastry, full of cream and sweet as nectar.

  His dominoes finished, our guide, Alfredo, leads us on our walk. “Un’ora,” he holds up one finger. We pass several villas of the classic type, whose immaculate gardens burgeon with floral life. Now and then, when he gets shagged out, Alfredo stops and gives us snippets of information. Tiberius built twelve villas on the island, one for each of the Roman gods. Apparently, none of them showed up.

  We are slowly climbing up the path and after an hour reach the peak of Mount Solaro. The view is indescribable, but I’ll describe it. To our right, I can see Salerno and even the invasion beach where I landed that day in September 1943 – even further away, I can see the Doric temples at Paestum. “Fantaslico, si?” says Alfredo, seated on a wall. Yes, fantastic. To our left, we see as far as the Gulf of Gaeta and the Abuzzese Mountains. It was like being in a plane coming into land at Naples. Toni and I stood with an arm around each other, silenced by what we could see. This was marvellous, better even than two eggs, sausage and chips! It was almost better than Bing Crosby in ‘We’re Not Dressing’.

  With the view etched in our minds for ever, we return to the square in Anacapri and two chilled glasses of lemonade. Afredo returns to his cronies and plunges into the hectic world of dominoes. “What do we do now, Terr-ee?” says Toni. I personally would like to die. It’s very hot now and we decide to have our last swim on the last day. By horse-drawn, then, back to the piazza which we find full of Americans who are all a bit pissed, sitting around at tables. They’ve got to the shouting-remarks-at-passing-ladies stage. We edge off to the funicular, which is coming up loaded with more noisy GI’s. When they see Toni, they whistle and give shouts of ‘Hello, Baby, get rid of him’, etc. It made me feel invisible. Fools! It’s a good job they didn’t know I boxed for the London South-East Polytechnic, Lewisham. It was an even better job they didn’t know I’d had the shit beaten out of me.

  Toni wants to know ‘Why American and British soldier always shout at woman’. I tell her the Americans can afford to shout because they have lots of money and the British have to shout because they haven’t. “Molto ignorante,” she says. “When German soldier in Rome they never shout.” No, they just gassed you.

  The sun is scorching down when we splash into the cool waters of the bay, which appears to be free from jellyfish. I just sit up to my waist, occasionally splashing myself to stop sunburn. Toni swims up and sits next to me. She holds my hand under water – kinky, eh?

  “What you think, Terr-ee?” she says.

  “I think it’s time for this,” I say, and give her a salty kiss and gave one a quick squeeze.

  “Ooo, Terr-ee,” she gushed, “everybody see.”

  Grabbing her ankles, I pull her under water – impetuous, playful fool, Milligan! Toni surfaces laughing and tries to splash me. I swim out of reach and pull funny faces. I’m such a bundle of fun, it wouldn’t take much for me to do my handstands. Ah, look who’s here – it’s the Fosters.

  “What’s the water like?” he says.

  “It’s jolly good,” I say.

  He wears a black full-length costume that was out of date in 1929, and a body to match. He enters the water, does a clumsy bellyflop then strikes out with a strange overarm stroke.

  “It’s beautiful, darling,” he shouts to his wife.

  I thought it looked very clumsy. She is wearing a ‘sensible’ one-piece, red costume; her arms and legs from the knees down are reddy-brown, the rest of her body ghastly white. She minces into the sea until the water reaches her fanny, at which she breathes an ecstatic ‘Oh’.

  I had wondered why our patch of beach was alway so deserted, today I find out why. To my horror, I notice ‘Richard the Thirds’ floating in the water. We are only swimming at a sewage outflow – no wonder I’d had the shits. When we return to the hotel, the manager confirms it. “Si,” he says, “‘molto sporco, molto, acque di scoto.” Fancy, I’d been up to my neck in acque di scolosl Apparently, the far side of the island is the shit-free swimming – too late, now. I take a hot shower and scrub my body with a nailbrush. Fancy, after all the paper I had put on the loo seats to avoid catching anything, there I’d been swimming in it! When I tap on Toni’s door, she is just out of the shower. She is wearing a dressing gown – not for long. We both end up in bed, steaming, with the Swonnicles fibrillating.

  After we have consumed each other, we fall asleep and are awakened by the maid wanting to come in and turn the bed down. Toni tells her not to bother. It’s twilight, the sky is going from purple to blue-black, with crystalline stars hanging like clusters of diamond grapes. Tonight we will dine where Toni says she’d like to eat in the piazza. I must put my Robert Taylor ki
t on: dark blue corduroy jacket, blue trousers, white silk shirt and satin tie. I comb my hair well back to show my ‘widow’s peak’. The mirror says I’m a Robert Taylor lookalike. I take my silver cigarette case, because I want to be seen tapping my cigarette on it after dinner.

  Arriving in the piazza, we find it busy with nightlife. It’s a Saturday, and the piazza is fuller than normal. I give my bankroll a quick feel to give myself confidence. In the corner of the piazza is the Vienna Café – very smart, outdoor tables with snow-white starched napery and bowls of flowers. The waiters, too, looked starched and crackle when they move. This is an Austrian-run café: all the staff are blond and blue-eyed. All of them look like Nazis on the run; their smiles seem a mite pinched and insincere. However, the menu is Italian.

  “Oh, this restaurant very chic, Terr-ee,” says Toni.

  “Very nice,” I say, as I made heavy with tapping a cigarette on my case, a little too heavy – the end of the cigarette splits. Unlike Robert Taylor, I nip the end off and light up the remainder. Even though I’m Robert Taylor, there’s no need to be uneconomical. The waiter brings us two ridiculous menus about two foot long by one and a half foot wide. Mine obscures the view of Capri, Toni and the rest of Italy.

  From behind this cardboard shield, I can at least hear her talking.

  “Wot you have, Terr-ee?”

  Terree will have Mozzarella and tomatoes, then scampi. Are you still there, Toni?

  “Yes,” she giggles.

  The waiter asks, any particular wine? I say, yes, any particular wine. Ah good, the piazza musicians have started up: they fill the night with melody – the vocalist, with halitosis, which he breathes over me when the band arrives at our table. He sings with a permanently outstretched arm, holding an inverted hat. Putting the menu on one side, I; take out my roll of money so that the entire square can see it. Slowly, oh, so slow, I peel off a thousand lire bill and drop it into his hat from a great height. The amount is large enough to bring a sob into his voice, and mine. He inserts the word ‘grazie’ into the song.