Last Boat to Capri: the epic international novel

Last Boat to Capri

by

S. L. McGregor

Also by S. L. McGregor

Beings and Doings – an allegory of God’s love

To my son, who believed in this novel from its inception.

CONTENTS

Dedication

Books by author

Contents

About the author

Acknowledgments

PART ONE: All Roads Lead To Capri

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

PART TWO: CAPRI

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 1

Gulf Islands Vancouver, Canada. June, 1999.

Herm Mullock’s brush-cut of widely spaced, gray-dyed-orange gelled stalks stood up on his scalp like an army battalion on parade, mocking the afternoon sea breeze’s efforts to bend them. Wrap-around sunglasses concealed eyes that darted in a repeat pattern beginning with the bikini’d blonde tanning face-down on a cockpit bench to his left, continuing to the straining jib, and on to the deepening dip and rise of the bow forty feet ahead before returning like a boomerang to the pudgy father and son on the right bench – whose stares, in contrast to his, weren’t moving; they were attached by invisible cords to the bronzed body opposite them.

In spite of copious applications of sunblock their pale skins had reddened under hours of pummeling by the wind and sun. The boy, who was fourteen, could have been cloned from his father, including receding chin, soft little paunch, and sunburn.

They reminded Herm of parboiled human lobsters, not quite dead. The image, while distasteful, was, he thought, appropriate.

Herm leaned his thickening ex-wrestler’s body across the stainless steel curve of the multi-spoked wheel and, after a final sweeping glance at the chart and horizon, switched on the autopilot. The closest of the Gulf Islands, Valdes, was over five miles to the west, topped by ladles of clouds dissolving in the salt-hazed air. The Canadian mainland to the east was farther, invisible. Herm’s tongue flicked across his thin mouth, incongruous in the fleshy, dented face; they were no longer in US waters. Apart from a flecking of whitecaps the sea was empty. He grunted, as if agreeing with someone; the sound was whipped away by the rising wind. He turned his fleshy, dented face towards the baking blonde.

You! Tessa! Turn over!

The girl obeyed even as she jerked awake. A coil of waist-length mane fell across her bikini top when she rolled over and she was grateful, not through any sense of unremembered modesty but because Herm’s tone caused her heart to visibly pound. She closed her artificial eyelashes against the glaring, small world of the cockpit. Her full, soft lips, painted the same hue of orange as Herm’s hair, twisted upwards, parodying a smile.

Herm eased his bulk from behind the wheel and stepped towards the blonde with a lightness of tread inconsistent with his girth. His barrel chest was covered in gray fuzz that didn’t match the growth on his head. Before she was aware of his presence he gripped the striped cushion beneath her and pulled it, tumbling her with a cut-off cry to the teak slats lining the cockpit floor.

Both man and boy jumped to their feet, indignation forming words that died in their throats as Herm turned on them, crouched low over braced knees, his long arms wide and bent, powerful despite having run to flab. The guests sat again, not comfortably as before but balanced on the edge of the bench, their eyes no longer on the girl but the man before them.

Herm glanced at the body lying prone at his feet and prodded it hard before he spoke in the breathless, hoarse tone that always preceded trouble.

Get up, bitch! Time to earn your keep.

The girl pulled herself onto the seat, her blue eyes reflecting nothing of the panic galloping round her brain like a penned wild horse.

Herm’s head swiveled to his guests; the black, domed windows of his sunglasses locked onto the son.

You, kid, what’s your name again?

A-A-Andrew, the boy squeaked, his voice cracking.

Well, A-A-Andrew, we have something in store for you, don’t we, bitch?

Andrew’s acne’d skin burned a deeper scarlet. His father placed a sun-blotched red and white arm across his shoulders.

The girl had wondered whether they were soft-soap guests offering Herm something he needed, or the frying kind who hadn’t delivered. Now she knew. She dropped her gaze to her glitter-decorated mauve toenails, shrugged, stood, and stretched her nearly six feet of surgically-enhanced frame. A diamond the size of a bunion sharded hard sunlight from her navel.

Optimism coated her insides like melting chocolate, too rich for her unaccustomed organs: maybe they were the targets, not her - and her heartbeat eased back from overdrive.

Father and son glued themselves together, seeming to shrink in the merging. Herm chuckled without humor.

The girl, Tessa, took a step to the center of the cockpit just as the yacht pitched into a short wave. Thrown off-balance, for a flash of time she forgot her training and looked into Andrew’s eyes.

Instantly she was a child again; the creaking of the yacht was her father’s boots on the attic stairs, the boy’s clutched towel was the blanket bunched beneath her chin in useless defense, the boy’s eyes were hers, staring at the doorknob with the same look in them that she’d just glimpsed in his.

The memory barged in the way her father had done, hulking in the doorway of her mind, panting with the effort of hauling his big body up the steep steps, exertion before exertion, in the endless moments before she floated up, up and away, separating her true self from what happened to the host body she dwelt in – both then as well as for all the other moments that stretched into the days and years of her life.

She planted her feet on the cockpit floor. I… No! The words came out against her conscious will, which knew too well the consequences. They hung as if caught in the mainsail’s back-draft, long enough for her muscles to tauten in protective preparation.

The force of Herm’s fist reeled her across the cockpit, slamming her torso against Andrew’s legs. She heard his high-pitched scream in some part of her brain as she doubled into fetal position, swinging her arms across her face in preparation for the kick. Instead Herm wrapped her hair around his wrist. She yelped as he yanked her up, whip-lashing her neck muscles before her head exploded with the second blow.

She spun through the air like a wind-milling puppet and hit the sea with a smack that pounded the air from her body; she spiraled down into numb green silence. The water was momentarily comforting, its quietness a reprieve until the torture of desperate lungs forced her to kick upwards.

  A white-horse of foam lashed her face when she surfaced, curtaining her vision and burning down her nose and throat as she sucked in air. Coughing and sputtering, she treaded water, trying to orientate in the pummeling sea. The hull that she’d expected to be towering above her, stationary, its sails flapping, was instead drawing away at a speed that left a smooth swathe in the choppy water.

  Herm stood at the receding stern watching her, the god of her destiny, his arms folded, his mouth twisted in the hated smile.

  She shouted down the wind. I won’t beg! You know I won’t!

He turned his back.

Tessa’s unbelieving gasp made space for another mouthful of brine. By the time she stopped coughing the yacht was far enough away that even if it turned back for her, she might not be found. Still she waited, until there was no possibility…then she kicked herself high out of the water and screamed profanities after him, freeing the corralled words; and all the years were in her voice.

*

                  Outskirts of Naples, May, 1965.

Ragazzi! Venite qua! Subito, subito! The order to assemble was followed by a piercing whistle

from the anti-burglar siren donated to the orphanage by Antonio the pickpocket in the hope of

reducing purgatory-time. Within minutes a group of children ranging from three to thirteen was

packed into the frayed sitting room of the once-farmhouse.

Sister Lucia surveyed them, shaking her head, a rangy penguin-figure in her nun’s black habit and white wimple. The purple-veined blob of her nose betrayed peasant origins, and was a source of fascination to the orphans. They overlooked the simple explanation and argued about whether she’d been a female boxer, or had once had skin cancer, or had been burned and needed a skin graft. Perhaps it was plastic surgery for beauty, gone wrong. Perhaps a father who had beaten her as a child. They shivered and giggled and loved her anyway, nose and all.

Look at you, every single one needs a wash all over again! Does it mean nothing that hopeful parents are coming today to choose a little angel? Do you look like angels? Do you act like angels? No! And again, no! I know what will happen: it will be my curse to look after you for life!

  The words were harsh but without bite, and the children knew it. Sister Lucia might shout and cuff, but she cared deeply for them all - except for Paolo, glowering at her from behind a wingback chair that concealed his broomstick-thin frame.

The nun sighed. Skulking as usual. She looked away and put on a gruff voice.

You have twenty minutes to get cleaned up. The whistle will blow at noon, and you will come back here then, disguised as angels. Go! Paolo, you stay.

  Sister Lucia walked to the door and closed it after checking for loiterers. She turned to face the boy, seeming to him more raven than human.

  So! What do we have this time? Come! Show me.

  He slunk forwards, jaw and face rigid, hands buried in the depths of a stained gray suit jacket donated from the closet of some or other deceased grandfather. There was a flicker in the dark of his eyes, and when the nun saw it, it was like glimpsing a spark from hell - again. After seven years the sight no longer affected her as it had initially, though she was glad he wasn’t any older… She wrestled her anxiety into the present and met his burning glare with her own.

  Empty your pockets. There was a different inflection in her tone from the one she used to berate the others. It was empty of love, and both knew it.

  The welts on his buttocks were raw from her last beating; experience had taught him the wisdom of waiting for healing before incurring a new load of pain. Holding her gaze, he jerked a knotted, transparent plastic bag from his left pocket and held it up, his body an outpost of unbending defiance. A small frog lay unmoving in the lower corner.

  Sister Lucia grabbed the bag and brought it close to her face, peering through its clear walls. What, it’s all in one piece? No limbs missing? Both eyes still in its head? No slits, gashes, burns? My, my, my. She pulled at the knot, gave up and jabbed her index finger through the plastic to tear it.

  The frog jerked spasmodically as fresh air surged around it. The nun stared at its flopping body, then walked to a sagging sash window and emptied the creature into the weeds that had annexed the tired olive grove outside.

  When Sister Lucia turned back, the fire in her eyes matched his. She strode across the carpet that had once been a Persian and now was little more than dun-colored threads; lifting her hand high, she slapped the side of Paolo’s face. The sharp sound left the shape of her hand palm and fingers glowing on his high-boned, hollow cheek and sent him stumbling into a side-table. A framed print of a sad Jesus looking heavenwards while cradling a heart braided with thorns, crashed to the floor, but Paolo kept his balance; for a second he felt more powerful than the God now at his feet.

  The nun followed him, soles crunching glass. Her voice, when she found it, reminded him of the sound a cat had made while he’d strangled it with its tail.

  I suppose you watched that poor little thing struggle for breath, timing how long it took to use up the oxygen, enjoying its death throes. You have devil’s blood in your veins: no human child could be so evil.

His black eyes pulsated. Hatred for the nun equaled what he felt for the faceless mother who’d brought him into the world and then left him to survive it alone. Increased it.

  He spat. The globule puddled harmlessly on a tile, gleaming in the morning sunlight.

  Sister Lucia struck the other side of his face, not caring if she left a bruise or broke skin - there were many innocent explanations for such marks. Paolo lost his footing and crumpled to one knee, but held her gaze. It was the nun who cut free; she whirled and stomped from the room, defeated in victory.

  Whispers and stifled laughter from beyond the door spread the hand-shaped color on his aching cheeks across his face. He walked to the window, raised it, clambered out and dropped to the ground, scanning the undergrowth for the frog even before he landed and searching the jacket for his pocket knife.

*

Naples, Italy. Early summer, 1955.

Maria-Luisa scanned the crowded exit at Naples’ Centrale railway station, seeking a driver displaying a placard with her name written on it. She smoother the cream linen of her jacket and pencil skirt with gloved fingers, which then drummed the bamboo handle of the saddle-shaped purse she had bought for the journey from Florence to Capri - a pricey piece in quality leather found at a local shop, G. Gucci, which, after opening a subsidiary on Rome’s Via Condotti, had recently pioneered their creations in New York. The family crest was emblazoned on the merchandise as well as the storefront. She liked to be ahead of the pack, and her fashionable eye told her that this name, already on the rise, was nowhere near its peak.

There he is. A portly, uniformed chauffeur hurried past the line-up of taxis, brandishing her name like a shield. A full five minutes late. She would tell her father not to use him again. She raised a hand.

"Signorina! Signorina, please forgive me. The traffic…" As the perspiring man bent to grasp the suitcase coated in Louis Vuiton’s classic initials, Maria-Luisa felt her handbag tug lightly as it was lifted off her forearm. She swung with practiced speed. It was not the first time someone had attempted to snatch her purse, and she had anyway been warned about the Neapolitan scourge of street kids, the scugnizzi. And beggars. And gangsters.

She caught the boy, a young teenager, by the frayed collar of his ill-fitting jacket. He was already in sprint mode and the backward yank floored him. The chauffeur dropped the suitcase and lunged for the handbag, recovered it, kicked the youth in the ribs and again in the buttocks as he squirmed away; he squealed and took flight, disappearing into the horde of travelers.

Maria-Luisa turned away with a shrug of disdain. Lazy little thug, she said to the driver. If he wants money he should get a job. As an afterthought she added, You redeemed yourself admirably. Now where is the car? We’ll have to hurry if I’m going to make the last boat to Capri.

I have double-parked nearby, just across the road. The chauffeur grasped the suitcase and led the way.

Maria-Luisa couldn’t see the car for the crowd, until she realized the mass of people spilling into the street was gathered in one spot – surrounding and ogling a gleaming silver-gray Alfa Romeo B.A.T. 7. Seldom impressed, even she judiciously concealed a gasp. The low-slung automobile with its spectacular aerodynamic shape and huge, curved tailfins was a fantasy dropped into reality. Her father had taught her that anything worth doing was worth overdoing…this was a case in point. She had seen photographs, but until now, not the reality.

Just as well I only brought one piece of luggage, she thought as the driver struggled to slide the case behind his seat. She wondered if there was a trunk; if so it was perfectly concealed in the fluid lines and waves of the design.

The driver opened the passenger door and ushered her in like royalty while the crowd pushed and gaped. Maria-Luisa was not above enjoying the experience, though her icy features, now under control, betrayed none of that pleasure.

How did my father arrange this? she asked as they edged into the stream of cars. As far as I know, this isn’t a production design, it’s basically a display model.

The driver shrugged, using his entire upper body in the process. "Your father must know people in high places. Now if the signorina pleases, my life as well as my job will be at risk if I so much as scratch this beauty. I would prefer to concentrate."

Maria-Luisa settled back, glad not to have to endure pleasantries.

The Naples traffic was less accommodating than the ogling crowd. Once the car was in the honking and swearing stream of cars, the B.A.T had to fight for every yard’s progress as if it were simply an ordinary vehicle. Ten minutes later they had barely moved a hundred yards.

A month earlier, Maria-Luisa had a vivid nightmare in which she was held down and forced to drink poison in a hotel on the seafront of Naples. She had no intention of spending a single night in the city. Listen, driver, I need to make the last ferry. Do something!

But there was nothing to be done. Eventually they turned right along the seafront into the double lanes that flanked the port. Here the flow speeded up. But not enough. Maria-Luisa saw the high bows of the Capri ferry in the distance, unattainable as a mirage. She drummed her long, crimson fingernails against her purse, and fumed.

When they finally slid into the gates of the ferry terminal, it was just in time to see the heavy lines cast off the massive steel bollards as the rear gangplank was hoisted above the roiling water.

Maria-Luisa leaned her arm across to the steering wheel and sounded the horn long and solidly. Drive! Drive to the boat! she shouted.

"But, signorina, no cars are permitted to –"

They can only fine you. I’ll pay. Now, drive!

The magnificent car drew up behind the slowly departing ferry like a futuristic vision, gleaming in the low sun as if its silver body were aflame. Maria-Luisa opened the door and stood beside it, her upswept hair in its French roll exaggerating the long curve of her nose. Perhaps her resemblance to Maria Callas was the deciding factor; perhaps the spectacular automobile alone would have been enough. Whatever the reason, the ferry captain made an unheard-of decision: he reversed back to the quay and re-lowered the enormous drive-on stern so that a lone dark-haired woman could walk aboard.

The driver watched her disappear into the ship’s receding darkness and sighed with relief. On board, a hollow-cheeked man with the finest of pencil moustaches, a grey fedora slanting across his brow, watched her move gracefully past the rows of seats.

What do you think, Aldo? He nudged the steely bulk of his companion, cocking his head towards her.

My mind was moving along those lines too, signore. His slight lisp, breathed from a mouth like a deer trap, was incongruous.

*

Although she passed through Capri’s famous heart, the piazzetta, on her walk to her cousins’ villa on the elite southern slopes of the island, it was not until nearly midnight that, refreshed and changed, she wended her way there again with Luigi and Anna.

Better late than early, after the low-cost day-tourist hordes have been expelled back to the mainland, Anna said, her patrician family beak tilted up as if a cheap smell still lingered to taint the air. In her company Maria-Luisa’s similarly shaped nose was dwarfed – a rare and pleasant occurrence.

Despite the late hour the island’s glamorous, cobblestoned arteries were flowing with the wealthy, the famous, the titled and their guests en route to display their designer finery at the four bars whose wicker chairs, tables, and umbrellas – unfurled even at night - were like props on a fabled stage. An occasional Caprese local, semi-sophisticated, always male, leaned against the inside counters: wolves watching for female strays from the visiting flocks.

The slender man seated at Bar Piccolo reached for a speared olive in the martini glass before him as he watched the three arrivals settle at a table across at the Grand Bar. He snapped his fingers to the powerfully muscled person standing behind his chair and whispered into his leaning ear. The bodyguard nodded and left, making his way through the patrons to the inside of the bar. When he returned he spoke softly to his employer, in the nasal voice made de rigueur by his broken nose.

She is Maria-Luisa de Rovini; twenty eight; only child of a titled construction magnate, Marchese Franco de Rovini and his wife Alida; lives in Florence with her parents; staying here with cousins who have a summer villa on the island. Enzo passed on the information he’d gleaned from a waiter in a low voice, and resumed a genii-like stance behind his employer, arms folded and pressed so that their hard-won biceps and triceps fought to split the blue stripes on his short-sleeved t-shirt. The pose had been perfected after much critical practice before his mirror.

The seated man acknowledged the words with a movement of his head. His narrow fingers formed a steeple that imploded when one hand stretched for an olive. He touched a starched linen napkin to the pencil moustache that divided his face into long upper and lower halves. From the night shadow of a black fedora, his hooded eyes examined the woman under discussion.

Her hair, gleaming black as polished Vesuvian lava, was freshly swept up. Strong dark eyebrows balanced the too-long Roman nose. Red lips, and flourishes of dark kohl that extended her already large eyes, completed a face whose contrasts and contours would have inspired Toulouse-Lautrec if the Post-Impressionist painter had lived to meet her.

Maria-Luisa leaned forward, whispering to the two people seated with her.

That man with the bodyguard, he’s raking me with his eyes. I feel quite exposed.

"Cara! Surely your dress is an invitation for just such a reaction, no?" Her cousin Luigi arched an eyebrow, careful to keep his own gaze above the level of her neck.

"Si, si, but the man has gray hair!"

Late forties, I’d say. Anna spoke for the first time, five years her brother’s senior, approaching forty. "That’s not old, Maria-Luisa, and anyway, when you’re il conte, the count of Capri, age doesn’t matter. You should feel honored by his attention." The pique in her tone betrayed her - she had spent more time before the mirror than her cousin, without the spectacular results of the other.

It’s not just his age, Anna, it’s his eyes. They peer from the shadow with lids like a lizard’s. No, thank you, this dress wasn’t worn for him. Although, apart from the lids he’s not bad-looking in a predatory way; I’ll grant him that much. Maria-Luisa’s long-gloved arm reached across the small round table to a full ashtray, where her smoldering cigarette was identified by the crimson smudge on its filter tip. Actually, I noticed him on the ferry coming over. One couldn’t miss him with that neolithic hulk watching over him.

Her cousin’s receding chin slid into his Adam’s apple as he nodded. I haven’t seen him around for weeks. Maybe months. Like many, he leaves for the winter. Capri is quite different once everything closes in October. He smiled, which changed his face.

From nondescript-ugly to sweetly funny, Maria-Luisa thought.

Personally, Luigi added, that’s how I prefer the island. It becomes ‘mine’ in a special way. I can walk its far reaches without loud voices in strange languages shredding my thoughts.

Ugh! said Anna. Capri dies in winter. Totally dies. Becomes a living cemetery floating on water. And as for interrupting your thoughts, Luigi – well, if your alcohol consumption were lower perhaps your fragile morning brain wouldn’t be as susceptible to noise.

Maria-Luisa raised her glass placatingly. To Capri in the summer.

The count gestured for a black-tied, cream-jacketed waiter and spoke into his ear; the man straightened and walked inside. A minute later, balancing a highball glass on a tray, he wound his way through the piazzetta across to Maria-Luisa’s table, and bowed.

"Signorina, il conte di Capri wishes to offer you this token of his admiration for your beauty. He asks only that you accept it as a libation, as from a mortal to a goddess." The memorized words, always the same, flowed smoothly as he held the tray toward her.

Maria-Luisa drew deeply from her cigarette before replying. Please thank the count, but tell him I must decline, lest the gods be disappointed.

The waiter blinked, straightened. "Si, signorina." He moved away, balancing the tray at shoulder height as he returned to the bar, careful to avoid il conte’s eyes.

Aren’t we the confident one! Anna’s voice was taut.

"Brava!" her brother spoke through the ice tinkling on the sultry Capri air. He summoned a waiter, intending to order another whisky, ignoring his sister’s frown. Before he could do so she pushed her chair back.

Could be an appropriate moment to depart, don’t you think, my dears? she said, her smile forced.

Luigi sighed and stood. He held out his hand for Maria-Luisa.

The count watched them exit off-stage, his eyes glittering in the hat’s shadow. The disgrace of public refusal was a new experience, a taste for which he had no intention of acquiring. His fingers steepled again as he stared at the vacated table, oblivious to the bustle in the piazzetta.

Behind him, Enzo shook his head. Povera imbecila, he thought. Poor, silly girl.

*

Gulf Islands, off Vancouver, 1999

Tessa’s arms moved in a slow breast-stroke as she battled towards an island several miles distant. She hadn’t checked the charts so didn’t know its name. The turbulent sea kept backhanding her with slaps of saltwater, each one a reminder of Herm.

A panicky hour later she was certain the island was no closer. Though