Michael Ridpath - Amnesia

‘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.

‘Real well,’ said Tony. ‘I’ll be ready to exhibit in Paris next year. If the Boches don’t flatten the city first.’

The mention of the forthcoming European war hit me with a jolt. For a brief moment I had forgotten it. Out here, in this green paradise of mysterious beauty, my decision to spend the next few months in a barracks in Yorkshire learning how to march and polish uniform buttons was losing some of its allure.

‘Where are the girls?’ asked Stephen, echoing my thoughts.

‘They went for a walk earlier. They’ll be back soon,’ said Nathan. ‘Let me get you a drink. Vermouth is the thing here.’

So we sat on the terrace in the shade of a lemon tree drinking cold vermouth. I knew it was a lemon tree, because huge lemons drooped from its branches, bigger than any I had ever seen before. They were a little disconcerting; it would hurt if one of those landed on your head.

I pulled out my pipe and started to fill it.

‘What is that?’ said Nathan in horror.

‘You should try it,’ I said. ‘It’s good for contemplation.’

‘He’s training to be a wise old doctor,’ Stephen said. ‘He’s just got a bit ahead of himself. I’ll always prefer a fag.’

‘Well, I prefer dames, myself,’ said Tony.

Nathan laughed.

‘Uncouth colonial,’ Stephen muttered.

‘Limey pervert,’ said Tony with a grin.

‘I still can’t get over you marrying Madeleine, Nathan,’ I said. ‘You told me in your letter about the legal wrangling, but there has got to be more to it than that.’

‘There is,’ said Nathan, grinning. ‘We think alike, Madeleine and I. She understands me, what I plan to do with Wakefield Oil, my ambition, my dreams. I would never have discovered that chatting to her over a dinner table; but you learn a lot about a woman negotiating with her. She’s smart and she’s tough.’

He leaned forward over his drink, his eyes shining. ‘It’s not because she’s a beautiful rich widow, it really isn’t. It’s because she and I make a good partnership. A great team. That suddenly occurred to me when I came to Paris this last winter to sort out the will. We were having dinner at a Russian restaurant, and I said it out loud, really without thinking. She said she agreed. And so I asked her to marry me. Just like that.’ He was grinning broadly.