I still found medicine interesting, I was good at it, and I had taken up rugger again. But I was a different person, there was no doubt of that.
I had received a letter from Nathan asking me to meet him and Madeleine at Tony’s house on Capri. Stephen and Sophie would be there, as would Elaine, who was now Tony’s wife. I had not seen Stephen since that afternoon in 1939 when I had fled the island, or at least not seen him in the flesh. I had watched him several times on the cinema screen, for his acting career had indeed taken off and he had performed and eventually starred in at least a dozen British films during the war. He had been working hard. He had also married Sophie, in April 1940 at Holy Trinity Brompton in London. They had invited me, but I had politely and curtly refused.
This was the first time that Nathan had visited Europe since the war: he had extended business commitments, but wanted to meet his old friends as well. Capri seemed to him the place to do it.
God knows why. I wasted no time in refusing. They wouldn’t miss me.
But Nathan didn’t take no for an answer, and he had written a follow-up letter which I had been unable to ignore; in fact I had kept it in the breast pocket of my jacket on the long journey from London.
Dear Angus,
I was disappointed to receive your refusal to join us in Capri this summer, much more disappointed than I expected. Let me explain why.
The war has destroyed so much. Buildings, lives, families, nations. I was fortunate, I have worked damned hard but I avoided serving in the armed forces, for which, I admit, I feel guilty. My younger brother Bobby died at Okinawa. Out of the historians in our year at college, Wardle and Henderson were killed, and Thurston was badly burned. I lost a couple of good friends from Yale. Madeleine’s village in France was one of those the Nazis decided to use as an example — thirty inhabitants were executed as a reprisal for resistance sabotage. I’m sure you saw suffering too.
Yet some things remain. Friendship. Love. Family. You and I were good friends before the war, as you were with Stephen. My marriage to Madeleine was easily the best thing that has happened in my life, and Tony and Elaine are very happy. So you can understand why I want to get us all together in Capri again.
And I want you there, we all want you there. Madeleine, Sophie, Stephen, even Tony, who says you were the only person apart from Alden who ever took his art seriously!
I realize that you were badly hurt by Stephen and Sophie falling in love on Capri — as you can imagine, it is something we have discussed at length together. They understand why you didn’t come to their wedding in 1940, and in fact I understand why you don’t want to come to Capri now.
But I hope you will; we hope you will. Because friendship should be stronger and more long-lasting than this darned war. You are important to all of us. So please come, damn it!
By the way, I have subsequently learned about England’s harsh foreign-exchange restrictions for travelers. Please don’t worry about that, I will cover everything. There is money in oil; too much money.
Yours ever,
Nathan was right, Nathan was absolutely right, and I was looking forward to seeing him.
Once again, Nathan and Tony were there to meet me as the ferry docked in the Marina Grande. Nathan had become sleeker, Tony fatter, and Nathan had grown a thin black moustache. They were both pleased to see me.
We took the funicular up to the Piazzetta where Ernesto was waiting for us with his carriage. Capri was clean, green and prosperous, seemingly untouched by the war. Tony explained that it had been used as a retreat for R & R, first by German officers, and then by their Allied counterparts. Tony had left his villa in the care of a local family in the winter of 1940 and returned to the States. He had spent the war pottering about the Pacific in a minesweeper. Elaine’s visit to Capri in the summer of 1939 had made a deep impression on both of them. They had married in Pittsburgh in 1942 and, as soon as Tony had demobbed, returned to Capri, to find their villa had been fixed up under the supervision of the German officers who had stayed there. Tony was painting again.
The others were waiting for me on the terrace: Stephen, Madeleine, Elaine. And Sophie.
Stephen had changed subtly. He was older, obviously, less floppy, stronger. His arrogance was still there, but it was less superficial, more ingrained. His smile was still dangerous, yet thrilling; he had clearly been working on it. But it was good to see him. After the long, damnably horrible war, it was good to see him. I stepped forward and shook his hand, and then we embraced — something we had never done before as friends.
Madeleine smiled broadly and kissed me on both cheeks — in her mid twenties she had looked like a sophisticated beauty of thirty, and she still did. Elaine had changed the most, but then she had been only sixteen the last time I had seen her. She still had the pert schoolgirl nose, but there was a louche air about her, and she had put on a lot of weight. Standing just behind them was Sophie. Her eyes were shining and her smile was one of relief and happiness, no doubt at seeing her husband and me reconciled.
‘Hello, Angus,’ she said and reached up to kiss me.
‘Hello,’ I said, grinning back. I was relieved myself to realize that I didn’t feel giddy, jealous, embarrassed, humiliated or any of the other reactions I had feared. I was just happy to see her again and pleased that she was married to my former best friend.
Tony broke out the vermouth, and we got down to some serious drinking — the deep blue of the Mediterranean spread out before us. The alcohol, the late-afternoon sunshine and the warmth of old friendship settled upon me like a comfortable blanket. I wasn’t a solitary person: I had formed strong friendships with my fellow soldiers during the war, and there were some good chaps among the other medical students. But there was something more durable, more permanent, more important about my friendship with these people. I was glad Nathan had made me come.
As the sun descended behind Monte Solaro, we moved down the hill to the little Piazzetta, where we installed ourselves in the Bar Tiberio, which took up one wall of the island’s main church, and spent an hour watching inhabitants and visitors parade in front of us. Eventually, Tony took us to dinner at Gemma’s restaurant, which we reached up some steps beside the church, and along a tiny alleyway under arches. Through this gloomy entrance the dining room opened up on to a terrace overlooking the Bay of Naples. The sun had slipped off the broad shoulders of Monte Solaro, and was now a red ball hanging over the gentle peak of Ischia, a golden path leading from it towards us. An enormous American battleship and its two accompanying destroyers loomed black against the silver and the gold. Tony was fussed over by Gemma herself, an energetic lady with a commanding presence for one so small. She liked Tony: everyone liked Tony.
The back wall was lined with paintings of Capri. One, of the cisterns at the Villa Jovis, caught my eye.