‘This way, sir.’
Hal follows the man into the drawing room. His first thought is that it is precisely the sort of atmosphere his father, the Brigadier, would be drawn to. It reminds him powerfully, in fact, of the Cavalry and Guards club, where his father would stay while in London. From the windows the Spanish Steps are visible, thronged with life. The room is not crowded, but he searches in vain for a glimpse of blonde.
The waiter is leading him now toward a table in the opposite corner. When he sees its occupant, seated with her back to him, Hal is about to tell the man that he has made a mistake. This cannot be the person he is meeting. But then she turns.
‘Ah,’ she smiles, and raises one eyebrow. ‘You came, I’m so pleased. I did not know if you would be interested in keeping an appointment you were actually invited to.’
‘Contessa.’ He takes the seat opposite her.
‘I thought I would keep my invitation mysterious enough to intrigue you.’
‘It certainly did.’
‘You guessed that it came from me?’
‘Ah – no, I did not.’
She peers at him, and smiles. ‘You hoped that it was someone else?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Well,’ she says. ‘I have an offer of work for you.’
‘You do?’
Her smile broadens. ‘Ah, but you’re interested now!’
‘What is it, exactly?’ As if he is in a position to turn down anything. But he did not live with his father for so many years without learning something of how to conduct business.
Before she can speak the waiter has appeared to take their order.
‘Bring us some of that gnocchi,’ she tells him. ‘The one that Alessandro makes for me.’
The man nods, and disappears.
‘So,’ she says. ‘To business.’
‘Of course.’
‘My film, The Sea Captain, is being released this spring.’
‘Congratulations – I heard that you had funding for it. I didn’t realize it was finished.’
‘Thank you.’
The gnocchi arrives now. Hal has only eaten the dish alla Romana – doughy shapes submerged in sauce and baked. These are delicate morsels, scattered with oil and thin leaves of shaved truffle. They are delicious – and Hal notices that the Contessa, despite her extreme slenderness, is enjoying them with the same relish as he.
‘Who directed the film?’ Hal asks.
The Contessa smiles. ‘Giacomo Gaspari.’
‘Goodness.’ Hal is impressed. ‘It must be something.’
She nods and says, without preamble, ‘It is. Quite brilliant – which I can say, because I’m not the one responsible for that. It will be screening at the festival, at Cannes.’
‘That’s wonderful.’
‘I hoped that you might come with us.’
‘To Cannes?’
‘Yes – but on the journey there, too. I’ve planned a trip first. A tour, along the coast where it was filmed, to publicize it. And to make the people of Liguria feel that they are involved, that it is their film. It is what they do in Hollywood: why should we not do it here?’ She smiles at Hal. ‘I thought you could cover it.’
‘For The Tiber?’
‘No,’ the Contessa says, with a note of triumph. ‘For Tempo.’
Tempo is in the big league – Italy’s answer to the American Life. ‘But how? I don’t know anyone there.’
‘Ah, but I do. They asked me if I knew of a writer who would do it – and I suggested you.’
Hal can’t help asking. ‘Why?’
‘I like the way you write.’ Seeing his expression, she smiles. ‘I told you I would not forget. Luckily, the editor at Tempo agrees with me that you are the right man for the job.’
‘When?’
‘The film festival is next month. But you would be needed for the two weeks before it, too.’
‘Well,’ Hal says, trying to process it all. ‘I suppose it depends …’
‘On the fee? I’m afraid the one they’ve offered is rather small.’ She names the sum: it is still far more than The Tiber pay for an article. ‘But I thought I would help. Because you would be doing me a personal favour, too.’ She takes a fountain pen from her reticule and scribbles on the menu. She turns it towards him, and says, with genuine regret, ‘I’m sorry it can’t be higher. I have a budget, you know …’
Hal stares at it, absorbing the significance of the extra nought. With it, he could travel to one of the wild, liminal places he has been thinking of: certainly North Africa, Australia even.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I could do it for that.’ To do anything other than accept, considering the sum in question, would be idiocy.
‘Excellent. I will put you in touch with the man I spoke to there.’ She takes up her fountain pen again, and passes the menu back to him. There written next to the primi piatti, is an address: Il Palazzo Mezzaluna, vicino a Tellaro, Liguria. He has not been to Liguria: has only a vague idea of brightly coloured houses beside an equally luminous sea – glimpsed, perhaps, on a postcard.
‘You will need to be there,’ she says, ‘in three weeks’ time.’
‘I shall,’ he says, quickly. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’
The smile she gives him is enigmatic. He feels a sudden trepidation. He has learned to distrust things that seem too good to be true.
Liguria, April 1953
His first impressions of Liguria are snatched through a smeared train window. These are visions at once exotic and banal: washing strewn from the windows of red-tiled, green-shuttered houses, road intersections revealing a chaos of vehicles. Palm trees, tawdry-looking railway hotels. The occasional teal promise of the sea. The sea. At the first glimpse of it he finds himself gripping the seat rest, hard. Sometimes it has this effect on him.
This whole mission still has about it an air of unreality. If he hadn’t had that slightly stilted meeting with the editor at Tempo – who seemed as bemused as he did as to why he had been chosen – he might have reason to believe it was all the Contessa’s little joke.
‘Keep it light,’ the man had said. ‘What do the stars eat and drink, what do they wear? What is Giulietta Castiglione reading, ah, what does Earl Morgan do to relax? Stories of cocktails in Portofino, of sun on private beaches. Of … of a sea the colour of the sapphires our leading lady wears to supper.’ Hal had tried not to smile. ‘Nothing too worthy. Our readers want escapism. Niente di troppo difficile. Capisci?’
‘Si,’ Hal had said. ‘I understand.’
La Spezia is no great beauty, though there is a muscular impressiveness to the place, the harbour flanked with merchant vessels and passenger ferries. Not so long ago there would have been warships marshalled