Michael Dibdin: Cosi Fan Tutti

It is also incredibly loud and animated, suggestive of imminent bloodshed to ears untuned to its finer nuances.

Zen makes the mistake of going over to calm them down, and immediately becomes the centre of attention once again, deflecting questions and fielding comments, gesturing hugely and maintaining a confident, unproblematic smile while he tries to work out who knows what about which aspect of whatever it is that has happened to whom.

Meanwhile the young people, left to their own devices, gravitate by unspoken agreement towards an outlying area of the terrace overlooking the cascade of steps far below, the tiled roofs of the house opposite and the seeming avalanche of the whole city petrified whilst scurrying down the hill towards the level expanse of the bay. The exhausted evening air, laden with an intimate, insinuating heat, coils and swirls around the quartet as they stand together, chatting and nodding, ignoring the stunning vista in a grand, proprietorial way.

Although their words are inaudible, the thoughts which they convey and conceal in equal measure are fairly clear to any casual onlooker. Gesualdo is in love with lolanda. Look how he leans forward and brushes his lips against the nimbus of her long hair, how his eyes always seek hers out and then focus afresh when they meet, how the motions of his hands seem at once to respect and caress the contours of an emanation which surrounds her body, perceptible only to him.

His beloved, on the other hand, is more problematic.

The open stance and glowing, shocked expression convey a message which that muscular tautness and those convulsive gestures appear to call in question, if not contradict.

This ambiguity might be explained in various ways, from the banal 'Does he really love me?' to the rather more suggestive 'Would he still love me if he knew…?' But the exact nature of the revelation Iolanda so obviously fears, but also desires, remains for the moment unclear.

The young buck to her left, on the other hand, leaning over the edge of the terrace with breathtaking disinvoltura, presents no such problem. He eyes up Libera with a disconcertingly frank appreciation which is neither tainted nor redeemed by any ambiguity. 'I've had this,' his eyes say, 'and if it came my way again, and there was nothing better on offer, I'd have it again.' Unappealing as this may sound, it must be said that Sabatino is easily the least constrained and most charming of the four. If you were there, scanning the company, glass in hand, he's the one you'd head for.

It is when we come to the object of his salacious homage that the whole thing threatens to fall apart. The other three are each, in their varied ways, paying tribute to the object of their desires, with whatever unspoken and perhaps unspeakable reservations. But Libera… She isn't even looking at Sabatino, for a start-off, but at Iolanda, and her gimlet stare expresses no love for anyone, with whatever qualifications or reservations, only the purest, crassest… well, frankly, bitchery. It's as though Iolanda had done her some wrong, scored a point over her in some way. But how can this be? Libera certainly isn't in love with Gesualdo.

Why should she care? What's going on? 'Mannaggia 'a Madonna!' This cry comes from Sabatino. Having told everyone what he wants them to know in a shameless survey of his conquest's charms, he is now gazing down at the alley below on the lookout for fresh game. And here it comes, in the form of two young women making their way down the steps through the hushed, expectant dusk. Sabatino stares at them fixedly for a long moment, his face a collapsed parody of the complacent mask he was wearing a moment earlier. He whirls around, staring wildly at Gesualdo, who is lost in the mists of love's young dream. Sabatino runs up to the other end of the terrace, where Aurelio Zen is holding forth to a confused but still attentive audience. The young man whispers urgently into his ear.

'Impossible,' replies Zen in the confident tone he has been using for his explanatory discourse.

'They're right outside the house!' Sabatino shouts, unable to modulate his emotions any longer. 'They'll be here at any moment!'

'What is it?' demands Valeria.

Zen turns to her.

'It seems that your daughters have returned.'

'Nonsense! "I spoke to them on the telephone just before I left to come here.'

'What are we going to do?' wails Sabatino. 'They'll be here any moment! If they find those Albanians here…'

'I wouldn't worry about that,' Valeria comments in a tone of unctuous malice. 'I'm sure they'll be very understanding.

Women always are about these matters.'

'What women?' demands Libera, joining the group.

Zen grasps her by the arm.

'Get your companion, go down to my bedroom, close the door and don't come out until I tell you. First, though, give me one of your shoes.'

Libera frowns.

'My shoe? Why?'

'Because that's what I'm paying you to do, Zen replies sweetly.

Libera slips off one of her shoes and hands it to him.

'Fetishist.'

She turns to Iolanda and gives a piercing whistle.

'Pay-off time!' she trills mockingly.

Her companion is clearly none too happy about having her rapturously fraught unspoken dialogue with Gesualdo interrupted, but after a few barked phrases in dialect from Sabatino he relinquishes her to Libera, who hustles her back into the house.

'What are you playing at?' Valeria hisses to Zen. "I want my girls to catch them together!'

'Catch them doing what? Attending the same party?

What does that prove? The whole idea was to arrange for them to be caught in flagrante, but since your daughters have shown up without any warning, we'll have to improvise.'

'I still don't believe they're really here. That young delinquent must be imagining things. He's probably on drugs. There's no way my girls would come back to Naples without letting me know.'

Here they are, nevertheless, stepping out on to the terrace and looking uncertainly around.

'Stap me!' exclaims Immacolata Higgins. 'If it isn't my two young ladies of last night. Well, well, it's a small world, to be sure.'

Valeria Squillace inspects the pierced and tattooed apparition in black leather.

"Is that you, Orestina?' she demands in a tone of mingled anxiety and menace.

'We were robbed, mamma!' cries Filomena, rushing forward with outstretched arms. 'They threatened us with a knife and took our money, credit cards, everything.

It was horrible, just horrible!' "I thought it was a fascinating piece of street theatre,'

Orestina comments dismissively. 'And they were very polite about it. The knife was just a prop. They left us our passports and return tickets, and one of the guys tipped me off to this great tattoo parlour by Camden Lock/ She slips the jacket and blouse off her shoulder, revealing the full extent of the tattoo, together with a considerable amount of the surrounding flesh.

'It's disgusting!' her mother pronounces. 'Wash it off immediately. And stop exhibiting yourself like that! Have you no shame?'

'It doesn't wash off, mamma,' Orestina replies, adjusting her dress. 'That's the whole point. It's a way of reclaiming your body, personalizing it…'

Valeria's silence is more intimidating than any reply.

'But, mamma, I'm still the same person inside!' her daughter protests with just a hint of panic.

'You don't seem to understand, Orestina,' Valeria retorts icily. 'To me, and everyone else of my generation, you are now scum.' "I told her not to do it!' cries Filomena, whose panic is overt and urgent. "I begged her not to! But she never listens to me. She never did and she never will.'

'Of course I listen to your mewling,' her sister replies contemptuously. 'Why do you think we're here? Because after those guys robbed us you did your usual neurotic prima donna routine, sobbing and screaming about how you couldn't sleep again until you were safely back home tucked in with your teddy.'