‘Was Sophie at the wedding?’
‘Yes, of course. She was a bridesmaid. She looked gorgeous.’
‘I’m sure she did,’ I said. Then came the tricky question: ‘Was she alone?’
‘You mean did she have a man in tow?’ Stephen asked with a grin.
‘Yes,’ I admitted.
Stephen’s grin disappeared, replaced with the ghost of a frown. He hesitated before replying. ‘No. No, she didn’t.’
Thank God for that. Sophie was joining us on Capri. I hadn’t seen her since Deauville, but I had thought of her many times. It was stupid really, I knew I had no chance, but I couldn’t help it.
‘She said you had written to her,’ said Stephen.
‘Yes, once or twice.’ I would have written to her every day, if I had allowed myself, but I didn’t want to appear overly keen. Actually, what I didn’t want to do was provoke rejection. Which was probably going to happen anyway, on Capri. I hadn’t admitted my infatuation to Stephen, but I could tell he could see it, and I could tell it troubled him.
‘Be careful, old man,’ said Stephen. ‘Don’t set yourself up for a disappointment.’
I felt both crushed and irritated by this comment in equal measure. Stephen was a good friend who rarely looked down his impressive nose at me. But every now and then he could be so arrogant and insensitive. Of course Sophie was too good for me, I knew that. But Stephen could be just a little more encouraging; could let me dream.
We finished our wine in silence, paid the bill, and set off southwards once again.
It was a relief to get out of the bustle of Naples and on to the bay. The steamer puffed into a steady breeze from the west. Behind and to the left rose the broken cone of slumbering Vesuvius, with the remains of Pompeii splattered on to its lower slopes. From there the Cape of Sorrento reached out and pointed towards the two hunks of rock that formed Capri. The island appeared dark at first glance against the sparkling blue sea, but as the boat neared, it resolved itself into light-grey cliff and dark-green trees, with a smattering of white houses in the cradle in the middle.
‘Do you suppose the Villa Jovis is up there?’ I said, looking up at the nearest cliff of bleached grey, soaring hundreds of feet above the sea.
‘Villa Jovis?’ said Stephen. ‘I thought Tony’s place was the Villa Amaryllis?’
‘Tiberius’s palace,’ I said. ‘There is a spot somewhere up there where he used to chuck people off the cliff to their deaths. The Salto di Tiberio.’ On the train south from Calais I had read Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars, in particular the chapters on Tiberius, the deranged emperor who had retired to the ‘Isle of Goats’, as the Romans called it, to spend the last years of his life in an orgy of sex and torture.
‘You’re going to make us climb all the way up there, aren’t you?’
‘You bet I am. You can borrow my copy of Suetonius if you like. It’s pretty racy.’
‘It’s not in Latin, is it? Please tell me it’s not in Latin.’
‘It is,’ I admitted. ‘You’ll manage.’
‘I think I’ll stick with Dornford Yates, if that’s all right with you,’ said Stephen. ‘In the original English.’
Tony and Nathan were waiting for us on the quay. I hadn’t seen Nathan for two years. He looked tanned, relaxed and happy. Tony was a little plumper, a little balder, but his genial smile was intact.
‘Congratulations, old man,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get to the wedding. Exams, you know.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Nathan. ‘I’m just pleased you could make it here. I know Madeleine will be happy to see you. And you too, Stephen.’
We jostled on to a funicular railway with the day trippers who had arrived with us on the steamer from Naples. This hauled us up to a small town crammed against the sheer cliff face of a mountain. We emerged on to a piazza, already filling up with tourists, and Tony approached a group of horse carriages. ‘Ernesto!’
One of the drivers, a tiny man with a large black moustache, grinned and jumped down to take our suitcases. The four of us climbed on to the small carriage, which set off along a narrow alley, barely wide enough for us to pass through.
‘Did you find the garage I told you about in Naples?’ Tony asked Stephen.
‘Yes. Are you sure the old girl will be all right?’
Stephen had been reluctant, to put it mildly, to leave his beloved Railton at the place Tony had recommended, a ramshackle shed at the heart of a warren of narrow streets.
‘Augusto is the only honest garage-owner in the city,’ said Tony. ‘Or at least he is honest with the expatriates on this island. He has a reputation to preserve.’
Stephen grunted, clearly not convinced. But there had really been no alternative.
The newer houses of Capri were either white or cream, the older ones various shades of faded red, orange and bleached blue, with barrel roofs. Flowers sprang out of their garden walls at all angles: petunias, geraniums, marguerites, and many that I didn’t recognize, in a riot of blues and reds and yellows. A delicate white flower that hung from some of the trees suffused the air with the scent of citrus and honey. It took a moment for me to realize it was orange blossom. There wasn’t a lot of that back home in Nidderdale. Everywhere, unseen birds were singing.
‘How’s law school?’ I asked.
‘Finished!’ said Nathan. ‘I hopped on to the SS Normandie the day after exams to come over here for the wedding.’
‘Are you going to practise with your father?’ Nathan’s father was an attorney in Nathan’s home town in Pennsylvania.
‘No. I’m going to take an active interest in Wakefield Oil. Shake them up a bit.’
‘Do you know anything about the oil business?’
‘I’ve learned a lot over the last couple of years. And I am a quick learner.’
‘That’s true.’ I had been impressed by the speed of Nathan’s mind in joint history tutorials with him in our first year.
‘And what I’ve learned is that the future for a medium-sized oil company like ours based in New York isn’t in Texas, it’s overseas.’
‘That’s not what the management think?’
‘Alden handed the management of the company to a Texan named Rodding. All he’s comfortable with is fighting for scraps from his cronies in Houston. That’s going to change.’
I felt sorry for Mr Rodding. Nathan might still be well short of thirty, but he was determined and, despite his inexperience, I wouldn’t have been surprised if his strategy turned out to be the right one.
‘Here we are,’ said Tony. The carriage drew up outside a high white wall in which was embedded an arch and a wrought-iron gate. Tony paid Ernesto and led us into a small shaded garden of ancient red-brick pathways, lemon trees and a massive wisteria whose thick wooden arms wrestled the house in a headlock. A tiny fountain tinkled in one corner next to a rockery sprouting spikes of orange and scarlet succulents and crimson amaryllis. Tony led us around the side of the house, up some steps to a terrace with a view over the open Mediterranean to the south of the island, and, much closer, the soft pockmarked rock face of the mountain which dominated the centre of Capri — Monte Solaro.
‘This is magnificent, Tony!’ said Stephen.
‘It is,’ said Tony. ‘And it’s all thanks to Alden. He left me several thousand dollars with the injunction to use it to develop my art, and to spend it slowly. So I bought the Villa Amaryllis with half of it, and it’s been a great place for me to get away from Paris and work on my painting, without the distraction of people judging it as it develops.’
‘How’s that going?’ Angus asked.