Alex Preston - In Love and War

‘Is it glorious?’

‘I’ll say,’ he agrees, swimming to the edge of the pool. He rests his elbows on the side, looking down over the city, across to where the valley funnels up into the mountains.

Colonel Keppel is coming down from the terrace above, his hand on Fiamma’s back. She is wearing a red bathing costume with a belt of gold rings. She dives into the pool and swims to join Esmond, her hair fanning out behind her. Colonel Keppel sits on the steps at the other end, his barrel chest inside a black costume of coarse wool, his face reddening in the sun.

‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ Fiamma says, kicking her legs. ‘The only place on a day like this. I hope Gerald comes soon.’

They swim for half an hour and then sit in the shadow of the camphor tree by the pool. The butler brings drinks — Negronis, tomato juice, lemonade — and the sun begins to lose some fierceness. Mrs Keppel sits on one of the white iron chairs beside the pool. The city’s bells are tolling four when finally Gerald arrives, his hair damp with sweat, his boating jacket swung over his shoulder and large dark patches at the armpits of his shirt.

‘Darling Gerald,’ Mrs Keppel says, ‘we’ve been waiting for you. You didn’t walk up, did you?’

He smiles bashfully at Esmond and Fiamma and then at Mrs Keppel.

‘I wanted it to be just like the old days.’

‘Every afternoon, all summer long,’ Mrs Keppel sings.

‘I remember running up that hill as if it wasn’t there. Eheu fugaces labuntur anni, eh?’

Mrs Keppel gives him a firm embrace, clutching him to her chest. The Colonel comes and seizes his hand.

‘Do you the deuce of good to walk. Too many soft young chaps — no disrespect, Esmond — think a taxi’s the only way to move. In my day, we’d walk to Bristol to get an appetite for lunch. Now, how’s the old man?’

‘He’s fine, sleeping. He and Gesuina are heading up to Bagni di Lucca tomorrow. A few weeks’ rest and he’ll be back to his old self.’

Mrs Keppel presses a Negroni into his hand and he drinks it, puts his jacket over the back of one of the chairs and begins to unbutton his shirt.

‘I hope you don’t mind, Esmond,’ he says, shrugging off his shirt and beginning to lower his trousers. ‘I have never worn clothes to swim and I don’t intend to start now.’ He takes off his socks and stands in his undershorts. Mrs Keppel looks at him as she looks at the rest of Florence.

‘I remember you swimming here, oh, you must have been thirteen. Length after length, utterly tireless. Mesmerising to watch your skinny body plunging through the water like a merprince.’ Gerald drops his white undershorts, makes his way to the steps and lunges forward. He arrows beneath the surface, a trail of bubbles fizzing behind him, shooting up from the far end with a roar.

‘Oh this is the life! Come on, George, come and have a swim. It’s bloody exquisite.’

With a slap, Colonel Keppel throws himself into the pool and, thrashing the water, swims in a fierce crawl to where Gerald is stretched out on his back in the leafy light. Esmond looks across at Fiamma, who watches them both with faint amusement.

‘We came here all the time as children, Gerald and I. Sometimes we’d swim in the Arno, up past Pontassieve. You think this is hot now, you’ll see in the summer. People drop dead in the street. The tarmac bubbles.’

Gerald comes up and begins to splash Fiamma. They swim off together, and Esmond is left looking down over the trees on the terrace below. He paddles to the shallow end, walks up the steps, and pours himself another Negroni. Fiamma and Gerald and Colonel Keppel are having races in the water, Mrs Keppel watching, laughing and clapping her hands. A few clouds appear over the hills of Fiesole as the sun sinks lower. Church bells toll and, behind them, the tinkle of goat-bells. Esmond watches an aeroplane cut through the sky to the west, extraordinarily high above the mouth of the valley. He downs his drink and looks at the pool. Gerald is balancing Fiamma on his shoulders and turning, both of them shrieking with pleasure, Colonel and Mrs Keppel cheering as they circle. Finally Gerald stumbles, topples, and they disappear with a howling splash under the water.

That evening, they step out for dinner as the city’s clerks and secretaries are leaving their offices, calling to one another across the via Tornabuoni, heading for their trams, swinging their briefcases and satchels, laughing and talking.

‘Norman Douglas is the finest mind I’ve met,’ Gerald says as they walk down the hill from L’Ombrellino, their hair still wet, still humming from the Negronis but changed and scented. ‘He’s coming to Piccolo’s,’ he adds, pointing ahead. ‘I just wish I’d known him when he was younger. He’s nearly seventy, you know. Orioli is bloody good value, too. Pinorman, we call them. Inseparable.’

The sun has dropped below the rooftops and Fiamma has her shawl around her shoulders. Esmond watches her hair flow from shop window to shop window as they pass. Gerald is in his suit, pink handkerchief spilling from his breast pocket. He stands aside to let two carabinieri march by, their swords clacking, capes puffed out by the breeze off the river.

They take the swaying tram to the Piazza Costanzo Ciano, Fiamma wishing the driver a buona sera as they descend. Children are noisily playing, someone is listening to a wireless in one of the apartments above, windows and shutters open to the evening.

‘It’ll be dreadful grub,’ Gerald says as they enter the square. ‘Douglas grew up in Austria, no idea of good food. Only reason he comes to this place is because the chef was trained in the Vorarlberg.’

‘It is worth it for the company,’ Fiamma says, and they smile at each other.

They make their way down a narrow alley and into a courtyard where a sign sways gently above an oleander hedge. A sad-faced maître d’ greets them at the door, bowing deeply to Fiamma. Despite the heat, he leads them into the stuffy, candlelit room where Douglas and Orioli sit at one end of a long table. Reggie Temple is with them. A waiter hovers over Douglas with a dish in his hand whose contents the old man inspects carefully. He looks up as they enter.

‘Ah. All right! Come on, sit down. I’m bartering with this crook over the scampi. Fresh today from Forte dei Marmi. Look like a little boy’s tom tiddler, don’t they?’ He bangs the table and gives a nod of his head. ‘ Va bene! ’ He lights a Toscano cigarillo and grins.

Esmond sits down between Orioli and Reggie. Douglas is embracing Gerald with a cry of ‘He’s all right, this man!’ Fiamma sits at the end of the table and lifts the shawl from her shoulders, bare skin above a green and white polka-dot dress. She looks a little nervous, and very beautiful. Esmond smiles at her, feels a blush.

‘I bet you’re glad to have young Gerald out here now, eh?’ Douglas says, fixing Esmond in a stare. ‘Must have been hellish boring in that place with only old Goad for company.’

‘Fiamma was there,’ says Esmond, looking down the table at her again.

‘Ah yes, but not the same as having a man there. You know Pino and I have a walkie-talkie system between our rooms? Sort of speaking funnel at the head of each bed. Means if we wake in the night with some 4 a.m. satori, we can yell it out to the other before it’s lost.’

There are two bottles of cheap Soave on the table and Orioli fills all of their glasses to the brim. He never stops smiling, looking first at Douglas, then Gerald, then off into the distance, an expression of constant, wistful benevolence. Reggie has drawn out a little sandalwood box and is showing it to Fiamma, who peers in and pulls a face.