Nine Summers Page 21

  Crowds shouted, ‘Hurrah…Bravo!’ My heart thumped, cameras clicked, movie cameras whirred. What a day of extravaganza. The festivities continued all day, at the end of which, exhausted, we made our way to San Giorgio and Galatea. And the noisy celebrations continued all night.

  The next day I came up with what I thought was a great suggestion.

  ‘Let’s have drinks at Harry’s Bar. Breathe the atmosphere that Hemingway and Orson Welles and Churchill and all the rich and famous have breathed. And what better occasion than when David and Anne are with us.’

  ‘Brilliant!’

  But how was I to know what a fool I’d make of myself when I asked for cashews?

  ‘Madam,’ the peremptory waiter addressed me, his nose high in the air, ‘we do not serve nuts.’

  One way to keep out the hoi polloi. But I gave Felix full credit for laughing out loud.

  We were sad to say goodbye to David and Anne. I realised that no matter how much we enjoyed our travelling life, I missed the family. Not long after they left us we put Galatea on the dry in Lignano and made for Paris, where we had rented a flat for four months. Not only were we looking forward to the experience of living in Paris, but also to having our granddaughters Emma, now 14, and Jackie, 11, with us for their Christmas holidays.

  We arrived in Paris on 1 October. It was a beautiful time of the year. The leaves had turned golden and dark branches were etched against the sky. Our flat in the rue de Babylone was in the 7th arrondissement, close to the Avenue des Invalides and Metro St Francois Xavier. It was part of a four-storey block of apartments with a central courtyard that had been built after the Franco-Prussian War of 1871.

  Our apartment was on the ground floor, with French doors opening onto a stone courtyard. The layout was long: the kitchen (every bit 1870s) was at one end, and led into a long lounge with an open fireplace, then on to a small bedroom that led to the main bedroom and an old bathroom. A bare globe, strung from the ceiling, hung just above one’s head when you were sitting in the bath. The owner, an American professor of physics, enjoyed reading there. ‘Well, that’s the first thing we get rid of,’ Felix said, ‘we’re not ready to suicide.’

  The caretakers were a Portuguese couple with a large ginger tom cat called Pilu, who spent most of his time stretched out on a long letterbox fastened to the inside of the metal gate, the entrance to the courtyard. With the air of a gendarme, he checked on everyone coming in and out. Each morning Pilu entered our apartment through a French door at one end and paced to the other end, checking as he went that all was as it should be. We tried to bribe him with fresh sausages to let us pat him. But to no avail. He was incorruptible.

  It was during our four months in Paris that we learnt to become proper flâneurs, aimless strollers. ‘That’s the only way to appreciate Paris,’ we’d been told. We took this advice seriously, and during October and November we spent most of our time outdoors strolling along elegant avenues and boulevards, through markets and gardens. We wandered along the Seine, and paused to browse through bookstalls, ate in cafés, read the papers and watched the passing parade. Once, we spent an entire day at the cemetery of Père-Lachaise, where many of the famous lie buried, and read the curriculum vitae listed on their tombstones. Several Poles surrounded Chopin’s grave, holding lit candles and playing mazurkas on an old battered wind-up gramophone.

  We strolled into the Café des Deux Margots in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where les existentialistes had once gathered to discuss politics and philosophy.

  ‘We may not have recognised anyone but at least we breathed the air,’ Felix said.

  October is an interesting month in Paris. It’s a time when many strikes and demonstrations take place. We watched hospital workers, teachers, transport workers, students and others carrying placards march peacefully through the city.

  At the end of December, Emma and Jackie came to stay for five weeks. They loved the fact that the day invariably started with a rush to the boulanger. When they were delegated to fetch the breakfast baguette, they bought two — one to bring home and one to eat on the way. We worked down a list of places we thought the girls would enjoy: palaces, galleries, the Eiffel Tower, trips on Bateaux Mouches…The girls also enjoyed strolling by themselves to shops and markets not far from rue de Babylone.

  Soon after our arrival we noticed a small restaurant across the road, at 45 rue de Babylone. ‘The people eating there all look French. It must be good,’ Felix said. ‘Let’s try it. But we’ll have to get there early. It’s really small.’

  The first time we entered people looked surprised, but as soon as they heard that we lived across the road, we were accepted as almost locals. We liked the fact that the seating was tight: it encouraged conversation and added to the charm of Au Pied de Fouet. Most people who ate there worked in nearby government departments. The prime minister’s residence, the Hôtel Matignon, was just around the corner. Many of the diners lived a long way from Paris and stayed in hotels or in chambres

  meublées, furnished rooms, during the week. At Au Pied de Fouet, they had their own napkins, which were kept in pigeonholes on the wall. Although we never attained that privileged status, the fact that we were almost regulars made us feel almost French. The place was run by an elderly couple, André and his eccentric wife Marcial, who made a feature of being gruff. She allowed no more than 90 seconds to order, and if she noticed anyone pausing to talk during a meal (and most of us did), she’d instantly be on the attack with, ‘Pas parler, vous devez seulment manger…No talking, only eating!’ We couldn’t blame her. The place only seated about fifteen people.

  Some days before we left Paris, I asked Marcial whether she’d give me the recipe for her chocolate cake.

  ‘You come tomorrow at 8 o’clock,’ she replied, without moving a facial muscle.

  The following morning, she thrust an apron over my head, gave me a bowl and wooden spoon and said, ‘Stir! Comment ça, like this.’

  Then she set me beating eggwhites with a hand beater and when I asked sotto voce whether she ever used an electric mixer, she replied emphatically, ‘Jamais!…Never!’.

  After our last meal there, she gave me not only the recipe for her chocolate cake, but also for her signature dessert, Tarte Merangue à l’orange.

  We were all in high spirits until the days preceding, and immediately after, the start of the Gulf War in January 1991, when the atmosphere in Paris changed. The tension at our end of the rue de Babylone was palpable and the street was permanently filled with police and police buses.

  One morning they didn’t let Emma go out of our gate to post a letter. That same evening we were at the opera when protesters set off smoke bombs and the entire place had to be evacuated. We were worried, and decided to leave Paris earlier than we’d planned. We parked our car in front of 41 Boulevarde des Invalides, and took off to Sydney.

  When David and Anne asked the girls, ‘What was the highlight in Paris?’, without hesitation they replied, ‘Smoke bombs at the opera.’ Better than the palaces or castles, even better than the bears on skates in the Russian Circus on Ice. It was a relief to get them home safely, and good to spend time with the family. But after six weeks we were ready to continue our peripatetic life.

  ****

  In April, as our plane neared Paris on our return from Sydney, Felix squeezed my hand and beamed. ‘…we’re on our way again. Our fourth summer!’

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are starting our descent into Charles de Gaulle Airport.’

  I pulled out my diary and checked the exact address where we’d left our car at the end of our months in Paris.

  ‘41 Boulevarde des Invalides,’ Felix told the taxi driver, ‘in front of a long black fence.’ The car had stood unguarded for six weeks. As we approached, Felix pointed to it. ‘Voila!’ The taxi driver shook his head in disbelief. ‘C’est formidable!’ he said. We’d left the Renault under bare trees. Now birds fluttered among spring leaves, and the car resembled a bird latrine. Unfazed, we unl
oaded our cases at the side of the road and paid the driver.

  When Felix connected the piece of starter motor he’d hidden inside the first aid kit, the engine came alive and revved with joy.

  ‘Only one flat tyre. Not bad.’ He took out tools and changed it. We loaded our luggage and away we went. ‘Galatea

  here we come!’ I gave Felix a hug. We chose a route that took us via the chateaux on the Loire, the gardens of Villandry, and made our way to Lignano and Galatea. This was going to be an easy summer. We’d stay in the northern Adriatic, spend more time in Venice, tour the Veneto and the Dolomites.

  ‘Isn’t it good to be back in Venice? Pity the old greengrocer has gone, but otherwise things haven’t changed much,’ I said as I held the torch while Felix did his annual engine check. ‘There are some good concerts on. Pity the opera isn’t on at La Fenice.’

  ‘Yes,’ Felix said, ‘but we’ll need to book. And the week touring with Giovanni should be great.’

  During a previous winter in London, we’d attended a course on Venetian history and art, run by a Venetian art historian who knew the Veneto like the back of his hand. For us, the jewel in the crown was joining his eight-day guided tour. Giovanni Montenero drove us like a taskmaster around Venice, Ravenna, Pomposa, Padua, Vicenza, Verona, Castelfranco, Maser and Fanzolo.

  He was a rotund, middle-aged man who loved his subject. With his arms in full gesticulating mode, he rarely stopped talking and photographing. One night he visited us on board and stayed for dinner. He had a love–hate relationship with Italy. He loved the land, its people and, of course, its art. Although he didn’t have a good word to say about the Church, he directed his most vicious invective against Italian politicians and big business. Nothing, he maintained, was beyond them.

  ‘Sometimes, I don’t think things have changed much at all. Just imagine, I read in the paper recently that enterprising businessmen have suggested building an underground in Venice! And a government minister thought it a good idea. Can you believe it? To seriously suggest in the 1990s, an underground in Venice! For that idea one needs politicians and big business!’ He puffed on his cigar, stretched his legs, filled his glass and continued in full flight.

  ‘Yes, it is true that we Venetians have always been different from the rest of Italy. In Venice, as far back as the thirteenth century, Venetians didn’t care where people came from, or what they believed in, as long as they were good for business…

  ‘In spite of all the churches we built, the Church exerted less influence in Venice than anywhere in Italy. The fact that the Pope excommunicated Venice several times never worried Venetians. The history of Venice is the story of a society shaped by people from everywhere, all of whom had commercial and financial links with Venice. Armenians, Greeks, Germans, Slavs, Dalmatians, Jews, Turks…All met and traded in the “marketplace”.

  ‘As for their private lives, the Venetians left them alone, and never interfered. Each group lived in their own district where they built their places of worship and benevolent societies.

  ‘Some people consider Italian disorganisation and individualism part of Italy’s charm. Perhaps it is for some, but not if you need to get something done. Without connections, you can’t get anywhere. You have to know how to “s’arrangiarsi”, fix things for yourself. For most things you need to know a person who knows the right person. We work things along networks. That’s how you manipulate and exchange favours. If you haven’t anything to offer, you’re powerless. Sure, this sort of thing goes on everywhere, but in Italy it’s an art form. I live in England much of the time, and it’s very different from living in Italy.’

  Montenero was certainly in a glum mood. I wondered what had upset him. He was letting off a lot of steam and had already put away the best part of two bottles; the saloon was thick with cigar smoke. But when he noticed that I was dropping off, he looked at his watch and was shocked to see how late it was. ‘I have stayed too long. Time for you to go to bed!’

  In spite of his moods, we always enjoyed his company.

  After some weeks in Venice and mooring off beaches in the northern Adriatic, we returned to the marina in Lignano and toured the Dolomites and the Veneto, often returning to Galatea in the evening.

  ‘This has been the easiest summer we’ve had so far,’ I said. ‘No drama, and do you realise, Puss, you’ve had no major repairs.’ Felix grunted. ‘It was good, but next summer I’d like to move on. I’d hate to stay in the same place every year.’

  In September we put Galatea back on the hard in Lignano and returned to London for the winter.

  This time, we moved into a flat we’d bought to solve our perpetual accommodation problems. We needed a place to which we could return at any time. It was tiny — one bedroom, a living room, kitchen and bathroom. Close to a tube station, it was only half an hour’s walk to Marble Arch. From the two front windows of 56 Blomfield Road we overlooked Little Venice, where barges floated down the canal, and from the back window we looked over English gardens. With the help of Percy the handyman, we sweated for three months wallpapering, painting and furnishing to make the place feel like home. Then it was almost time to think about our next summer and Galatea.

  chapter nine

  When we returned to Lignano this time, we were hoping to go a long way. We spent several days there, organising and checking equipment on Galatea, then sailed to Venice.

  ‘We’ll have to start moving if we want to get to Turkey this summer.’ Felix was standing at the navigation table, poring over charts. It was 7 o’clock, the thermometer already registered 29°C and I was still in bed. I stretched, touched the warm cabin ceiling, felt the burning porthole above me, and curled up again. Too hot to stay in bed, too tired to get up.

  ‘It’ll take us at least ten days to get to Otranto. Then we’ll have to go through the NATO blockade to get to Corfu. We’ll need to leave on Thursday at the latest. The long-range forecast is for another bora.’

  ‘Right! Watch me, I’m getting up, quick cold shower to wake up. I’ll be ready in ten minutes. Let’s have coffee and a roll when we go for the mattresses, before the heat kills us.’ I squeezed past the navigation table, and gave Felix a hug. It was 8 o’clock and steam was already rising from the pavements as we crossed the piazza into the maze of narrow streets. It was cooler in these alleys, where the sun rarely penetrated.

  ‘Ah, you are here to pick up the mattresses,’ Vittorio smiled. He was a slight man with thinning grey hair, a gentle, creased face and tobacco-stained teeth. ‘I thought you’d come today. You said you’d be leaving Venice soon.’

  We’d got to know Vittorio during our two summers, and each time we passed by, we went in for a chat and coffee. When he’d heard that we were from Australia, he regaled us with stories of his relatives who had migrated to Queensland many years ago. ‘But Lucia, my wife, didn’t want to leave her family, so we stayed.’ He’d been working in Venice since he’d returned from North Africa after the war many years before.

  ‘Angela, get us three coffees! We must have one last coffee before you leave!’

  ‘So where will we find you next time we come to Italy?’ Felix asked.

  ‘We plan to retire to my wife’s village and grow vegetables. I’ll write down the address for you on this piece of paper and you must visit us.’

  ‘San Zannone, that’s near Treviso,’ Felix checked the address. ‘OK, next time we’re in the Veneto, you’ll see us, that’s a promise!’ A sharp pain pierced my heart when he said that. ‘Goodbye, Vittorio, look after yourself. With luck we’ll meet again, and thank you for everything.’

  ‘Are you sure you can carry the mattresses?’

  ‘No problem, we’ll go to San Marco and get the vaporetto.’

  ‘Goodbye, and buon viaggio.’ We shook Vittorio’s calloused hand. He escorted us to the door and waved. I wanted to cry. We’d established such a warm rapport with so many people, and each goodbye was more difficult.

  I took a deep breath, tucked a mattress under
my arm, and weaved my way through narrow streets, squeezing past beaming tourists, with Felix following behind. We bumped into people left and right as we threaded our way up and over a small bridge near Ratti’s hardware. The aroma of coffee and body odours filled the air, but we struggled on along the Mercerie, Venice’s most elegant shopping street, until we emerged into Piazza San Marco, and crossed to the vaporetto station. The vaporetto was packed with tourists.

  It’s easy to pick first-time visitors to Venice. They spin and twist their heads like curious geese to take it all in. The commotion on the water, the near collisions of gondolas and ferries, speedboats and yachts, the blaring of horns, the palazzi along the Grand Canal, Santa Maria della Salute, the Doge’s Palace, San Giorgio Maggiore…

  I squeezed and pushed to get on the vaporetto, mattress under one arm, with Felix close behind. A local on his way to work cursed under his breath as we came on board. I caught Felix’s eye. We smiled at each other in sick amusement. Standing next to me was an elderly English couple with a broad Midlands accent. The woman looked us up and down. I heard her whisper to her husband, ‘They’re a bit old for carriers!’ To be mistaken for aged Venetian carriers was too hilarious to resist, so I said, ‘We sure are too old to be carriers!’ Impeccable English from the mouth of this clapped out female she took to be Venetian collapsed the woman’s face. For some seconds, she was dumbstruck, her mouth hung open, then she gathered herself, pushed and fled as fast as she could to the other side.

  We’d been in and out of Venice three times during our two summers in the northern Adriatic, and had spent over eight weeks in Sant’Elena. Our faces were familiar at the post office, the laundrette, the greengrocer, the baker and the delicatessen at the Lido. We knew the vaporetto timetables, and we each had our three-year travelling concession card, the Carta Venezia. When we’d left Venice on previous occasions we found it painful enough. But this time we knew we wouldn’t return. Venice had been the highlight of our travels, and now it was time to leave. The notion that time was not on our side was always with us; we didn’t need to articulate this. But we also knew that we had never felt as free, and unencumbered by obligations, as we were then.