The Apprentice Lover (7 page)

T
hat night, in the dining room, I met Holly Hampton, Grant's English assistant, for the first time. She was elegant in a distinctly English way (although her mother was from Philadelphia), with pure but understated features. Her blond hair was silky, parted in the middle, and cut just above her shoulders. She wore a simple white dress with a high neckline. Our eyes rarely met, but I found myself excited by her presence, and wishing I could study her face at leisure.

To welcome me, Vera had made one of her favorite dinners: tagliatelle al prosciutto for the first course, or
primo
, then salt cod alla romana, served with long green beans marinated in olive oil and garlic. This was followed by a cheese tart covered in pine nuts and raisins—crostata di ricotta. The wine, from Grant's cellar, was Bianco del Vesuvio—“a whorish little vino,” he said, filling glasses around the table, “but suitable for us, I fear.” He obviously relished the position of
arbiter bibendi
.

Grant introduced me as “a Latin scholar fresh from the New World.”

“My brother is a Latinist,” said Holly. “At Balliol.”

“That's an Oxford college, Lorenzo,” Grant said, when I didn't respond at once.

“I know,” I said.

“Sorry, old boy. That ignorant look of yours rather deceived me.”

A grandfather clock stood against one wall, ticking loudly.

“Please, Rupert,” said Vera. “It's his first night.”

“He's a strong chap,” Grant said. “And we're already friends, aren't we?” His nostrils appeared to flare.

“Malefico,”
said Marisa, clucking her tongue.

“Oh, do speak English, Marisa,” Grant told her. He turned to me. “She spent a year in Liverpool, and she's perfectly fluent.”

“I hope you'll like us when you get to know us,” said Vera, tentatively.

“For God's sake, Vera, let it go,” said Grant, with a detectable slur in his phrasing. I guessed that he had been drinking since our meeting in his study.

“Rupert is drunk,” said Holly. “He's not always so frightful.”

Maria Pia and a delicate-looking young man called Alfredo, a cousin of hers, were serving the first course. There was nothing elegant about their presentation as they dropped the plates before each person at the table with a clatter.

Grant leaped from his seat, moving around the table, putting his arms on Holly's shoulders. “She is my prize,” he said. “I believe she will be a fine novelist one day.”

I noticed that Marisa blanched, looking down.

Holly shook off Grant. “I'm writing my first novel, and so are a billion other people.”

“I'm a fairly reliable reader,” said Grant, “and I like what I see.” He kissed her on the back of the head.

“I must be not good,” said Marisa. “You have never told me anything of this kind, Rupert.”

“How could I, since I've read almost nothing of yours? Unlike most reviewers, I insist on reading a work before judging it.”

Vera quickly poured herself a second glass of wine, agitated by her husband's performance.

“Our new friend, Lorenzo, is himself a poet,” Grant announced. “Why don't you recite something? Acquaint us all with your work.” He folded his arms, as if waiting for my recital to begin.

I said, “I'm not much of a poet.”

“But you sent me poems. I rather liked them.”

“I don't remember any,” I said.

“Dementia, what? Brain cells washed away by alcohol? I sympathize.”

“I just never bothered to memorize them,” I said. “They're not good enough.”

“Oh, dear,” he said.

“Do sit down, Rupert,” Vera said, looking sternly at her husband.

“Shut up, Vera. You're becoming a bore,” he said. I had never heard that word carry so much negative weight.

Walking slowly around the table, he glared at each of us in turn, eventually taking a seat. Munching a piece of bread, he told us that he'd heard from a producer at the BBC that morning that one of his novels,
Siren Call,
was being considered for a serial. “There will be money in it,” he said, “especially if I get to do the scripts.”

“These projects never pan out,” Vera said, dampening the flame of his enthusiasm. “Or they take decades to materialize.”

“You're always so refreshing, Vera,” said Grant. “It's no wonder I love you.”

“I fear Alex will get the wrong impression of us,” she said. “We don't always carry on like this.”

“I have an idea,” said Grant.

“Shall I alert the press?” Vera quipped.

Grant ignored her. “There's a marvelous game,” he said, “a way to introduce us properly to our new friend, Lorenzo d'America.” He wiped breadcrumbs from his mouth, as everyone waited. “Let's assume it's my turn. My dear wife must state the
least
likely thing that could be said about me. Go ahead, Vera. What would no rational person in the galaxy ever say about me?”

“Rupert Grant has no idea how clever he is,” she said, without hesitation.

“Bravo!” He clapped his hands, then turned to Holly.

“I'm not much for games,” she said.

“Do be a sport,” Vera said. “We used to play this game at school.”

Holly put a finger to her lips, thinking. “Rupert Grant,” she said deliberately, “always lays his cards on the table.”

“Very nice,” said Grant.

Marisa didn't have to be prodded. “Mister Grant,” she intoned, “does not care too much what people says about him.”

“A dagger, dear girl, an absolute dagger,” he said. “I must work to correct this misapprehension on your part. You see, Alex, the game has many positive aspects. It's better than psychotherapy.” He gestured toward Vera. “The focus will now shift to my wife of many years, and I shall go first.” He wrinkled his nose, in deep thought. “Vera Grant does not have a jealous bone in her body.”

“How ludicrous,” said Vera. “He's reversing the game.”

“I stand corrected,” said Grant.

Holly did not wait a moment. “Vera Grant should employ a cook. The food at the Villa Clio is rubbish.”

Grant was expressionless. “You're clever, Holly, but I detect a lack of wit in that response. It does not speak well of an Oxford graduate.”

“You take your games too seriously,” said Holly.

“Poetry is a game,” I said.

“A game of knowledge,” said Grant. “That's Wystan's formulation, I believe.”

“How literary we are,” said Vera. “I really should have invited the press.”

Marisa said, “Vera does not care what he makes, her husband.”

“I should hope not,” said Grant. “I do whatever I please.”

“Bollocks,” said Vera.

Grant sighed. “As you see, this is a game of knowledge, too. But humankind cannot bear very much reality.”

I recognized the last line as a quotation, but could not locate the source.

“Marisa Lauro is a serious journalist,” said Grant, portentously.

“Marisa Lauro doesn't care what people say about her,” said Holly, glaring at Grant.

“Marisa Lauro paints her toenails only to please herself,” said Vera.

“Every girl is painting her toenails except Holly,” said Marisa. “I am not so intelligent as these,” she said to me. “I am sorry for my confession. But you will not tolerate me for long. I am going to bed.” She rose and left the room, her pasta course untouched.

No one spoke till she was gone.

“Tetchy girl,” said Grant, reaching for her glass of wine, which he gulped.

“She's very sensitive, Rupert,” his wife said. “I wish you'd be more careful.”

“Life is too short for that,” he said. “Truth is all that matters.”

“I'd have voted for Beauty,” she said.

Grant turned to Holly. “It's your turn, I suspect. We aren't letting you off the hook.”

“I'm tired of this game,” Vera said.

“Come on, darling. Play up, play ball, and play the game,” said Grant.

This was, I supposed, another quotation.

“All right,” said Vera. “Holly Hampton is perfectly transparent. What you see is what you get.” A permanent-looking smirk formed on her lips.

“But one sees so little,” said Grant. “Or, perhaps, one sees so much. I'm not sure.”

“Let's say that I'm a mystery,” said Holly, “even to my myself.”

“We like you as you are, my dear,” said Grant. “Make no adjustments for our sake.” He tapped his fingers on the table, formulating a line. “Holly Hampton is desperately in love with Rupert Grant,” he said, suppressing a grin.

“I do love you, Rupert,” she said, flatly. “Why else would I sleep with you?”

Vera's smirk vanished.

“What about you, Lorenzo?” Grant wondered. “We don't really know you, but if we did, what would we never say about you?”

I didn't hesitate. “Alex Massolini is a hard sell,” I said.

Vera crinkled her brow. “You're a pushover in a shoe shop, is that what you're telling us?”

“He's what Americans call a wimp,” said Holly.

“I see,” said Grant. “Lorenzo will be good fun for all of us, what? Gullibility an endearing flaw. But we shall do our best to correct it, I daresay.”

I
was late for Grant's party, and could see from the cliff above the beach that tables had been laid end to end, and that a crowd had already gathered, most of them forming a circle around Grant.

Being shy, I admired those who were not. And Rupert Grant was blessed in this regard, having a robust outwardness that would have been trying had it not been modified by a Scots wryness and general British sense of cool. He stood with a drink in hand, in the midst of some amusing anecdote. His white hair, a Pentecostal flame, leaped above his head. Shoeless, he wore a long-sleeved, flowing, chalky blue shirt, in the style of a Russian mujik. The girls, as he called them, were at either side, his attendant muses, beautiful and subdued, while Vera wandered at the edge of the crowd, by herself. The scene made my stomach clench.

That her husband diverted himself with younger women right under her nose could not have made her life easy. I had searched her face for signs of anxiety or resentment, expecting a great deal of repressed anger; but little presented itself, apart from the occasional sly or cutting remark. Looking back, I wonder how I managed to navigate this situation. Certainly I wanted to fit in, and suppressed any complicated feelings about the Grant marriage, accepting their arrangement as simply a fact of life. I told myself that worldly people didn't trouble themselves with such things as conventional morality. Everything I'd been led to believe about
love and marriage was put on hold as I strode forward into this brave old world.

Though Grant was close now, my attention was absorbed by Holly Hampton. She tossed her head back, laughing, reacting strongly to Grant's witticisms. To me, she seemed entirely beautiful in a boyish way. Just the outline of her body intrigued me: the odd, quirky angle of her hips, the way her head cocked slightly to one side as she listened. Her wrists dangled, and she had a quick smile and distinctive laugh. I liked the deep part in her hair, which revealed a lovely white strip of scalp.

Occasionally one can tell a lot about someone on brief acquaintance, and this was true for me with Holly. It had not surprised me, for instance, when I learned that her mother was from Philadelphia's Main Line. (You didn't usually meet English girls called Holly.) But her education and upbringing had been wholly British. She was obviously the product an English public school, and her aloof manner had been perfected at Lady Margaret Hall, her Oxford college. Even the physical mannerisms were British and class-specific, as when she held her arms around herself as she stood back to listen with her head tilted to one side. There was an aura of composure and self-assurance that, at its worst, veered toward complacency. At its best, it was reassuring; Holly knew her place in the world, and the place of those around her.

“God, we're surrounded by Yanks,” Grant said, having caught sight of me. He beckoned over a burly man of fifty with a salt-and-pepper beard, drawing me urgently toward him. “Dominick,” he said, “this is my new assistant, Lorenzo. He's from New York.”

“Pennsylvania,” I said.

“Dom Bonano,” the man said, holding out his hand. “Let me guess. You wanna be a writer.”

I simply smiled.

Bonano pushed his large, irregular face ahead of him like a cart full of groceries, his nose only a few inches from mine. “I guessed it just by looking. I must be a genius or something.” He blew his nose in a handkerchief. “Allergies, excuse me,” he said. “This is the worst time of year for that, all the flowers. The island is lousy with flowers.”

I felt desperate to get away from him, but there was no easy exit.

“What kind of stuff do you write?” he wondered.

“Poetry,” I said. “I'm thinking of a novel.”

“Thinking, huh? Listen up, Larry. Everybody wants to write a novel, but if it was so easy, everybody would do it. There would be five million new fucking novels on the shelf every year.”

“Alex,” I said. “My name is Alex.”

“Alex what?”

“Massolini.”

He brightened. “A paisano! Just what we need in Capri, more goddamn wops.” He asked where my family came from—a habit common among Italian Americans, who are forever prodding in the dark of their past for signs of origin, aware that place and legitimacy are somehow connected.

“My father's parents came from Naples,” I said. “My mother's were from Calabria.”

“Naples is great,” he said, “but it's run-down. Full of pickpockets and hustlers. Mine were from Palermo. The cousins love to come here, visit their
cugino Americano
. Christ, they love it.” I had been slowly backing away from him, but he pushed close again, speaking in a low voice. “I hate to be the one to break the news, Al, but there's no point in writing novels. Nobody wants them. Not like when Hemingway was king, and when it was really something to write a novel. Not anymore.” He sniffed again, rubbing his nose. “Not that I'm writing literature myself. I just tell a good story. There's always an audience for a whopping good tale.” He seemed to be saying,
the critics seem to have forgotten that Dickens and Balzac were storytellers first and foremost
.

Bonano's face held my attention like a car wreck. The nose was mottled and bulbous. His black eyebrows would not lie down. The general manner reminded me of my Uncle Vinnie, my father's younger brother. The business he pursued had something to do “with electronics” (so he said). Although he maintained a large Victorian house in West Pittston, with a portico and magnificent view of the Susquehanna River, Vinnie spent most of his time on the road, in New York and Miami, where he stayed in suites at glitzy hotels. He bought a new Lincoln Continental,
usually with a soft top and white leather seats, every other year. His wife, Gloria, would not be caught dead without a string of pearls around her neck. In winter, she draped herself in mink; summer, it was silk all the way. (Soon after I left Columbia, I got an unexpected call from my uncle. “You want to go into electronics,” he said, “you call your Uncle Vinnie. I could use a smart boy like you.”)

“You come over and see me soon,” Bonano said. He scribbled his number on a piece of paper and pushed it into my shirt pocket. “You'd like my daughter, Toni. She's a college girl, Bryn Mawr.”

“A good school,” I said.

“You bet your ass. She's in psychology. Reads Freud all the time. Every time she opens her mouth, that stuff comes tumbling out. This complex and that complex. Oedipus and Electra. I hate that shit, but what do I know?” He looked around, as if afraid someone would overhear us. “Hey, she'll be here in a couple months.”

I kept a neutral expression. As with Vinnie, you couldn't give a man like Bonano too much ground or he would eat you alive.

“You call me now. Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Good boy, Al.”

“Alex,” I said.

“Got it,” he said, then tapped me on the shoulder and walked away.

“He's death,” said an English voice behind me. I turned to see the kindly face of a man in his sixties, lean and tan. “I don't know why Rupert invited him. The brotherhood of fiction, I assume.”

“Rupert seems to like him,” said Vera, appearing beside the Englishman. “You've met Peter, I see?”

“Not yet,” I said.

“Peter Duncan-Jones,” he said. There was a natural warmth about him that I liked at once.

“He's an admirer of yours,” said Vera.

“Oh?”

“Your paintings—the ones at the villa,” I fumbled for the rest of the sentence, “caught my eye.”

“A good eye, I should say.”

“Be careful,” Vera cautioned him. “Alex is American. He'll think you are being serious.”

“I am serious, darling. If I can't adore me, who will?”

“Indeed.”

An old Etonian, Duncan-Jones wore a paisley cravat, a navy blazer, and white trousers with cuffs: the look typical of English stockbrokers on holiday. A family signet ring adorned the little finger on one hand, the mark of a gentleman.

“We call him Picky, for Picasso,” Vera put in, repeating what she had told me before just to annoy him.

“
You
call me Picky,” he said. “Nobody else on this planet finds that amusing, Vera.” He turned toward me directly, and I felt worried about Vera. She seemed unable to get a purchase on the company. “You might like to see my studio, Alex,” said Duncan-Jones, jotting his number on a matchbook and stuffing it into my shirt pocket. “It would be an honor.” He explained that his companion, Jeremy, had gone to London for a few days, but he would also be glad to meet me. “Jeremy is a social butterfly,” he said. “Flit, flit, flit.”

That everyone craved my company puzzled me. I had accomplished nothing, and whatever charms I might possess were still hidden. Now and then I rose to my own defense, but I felt more acted upon than acting, afraid to make my wishes known. As I soon learned, however,
any
new resident on Capri attracted attention, at first. Once the honeymoon was over, they would leave you in peace, especially if they considered you the worst of all possible creatures, a bore.

Patrice leaned heavily on my shoulder, materializing like Ariel in Prospero's cell. I thought again how uncannily he resembled my brother: not just the smile, but the sharp face and pointed chin. They were both slender but somehow sturdy, rather androgynous, though Nicky had gone to great lengths to override this trait. He had been at various times a weight lifter, a karate expert, a motorcyclist, and a football player (briefly, during junior high—much to my father's delight). He would do anything to insist upon his manhood.

“I am not introduce,” Patrice said, breaking my reverie.

“I didn't see you!”

“But I wasn't here,
mon ami
. When I come here, now you see me. Modern physics!”

Patrice, who had already drunk too much, giggled like a schoolboy.

“Who is your friend?” asked Duncan-Jones. Patrice had drawn his full attention. After the briefest introduction, I left him in the painter's avid care.

“He's such a chicken hawk,” said Vera, “but I do love him.”

“Are you all right?” I wondered.

“Why shouldn't I be?”

“You seemed a little sad.”

She looked at me harshly, and I realized I had opened a box that she preferred to keep shut. Changing the subject, she seized my arm. Her agenda for me was powerful, and she used me to divert herself as we moved from Milanese publisher to Greek fabric designer to Russian countess, the names or titles mostly lost on my unsophisticated ears. Only Count Eddie von Bismarck, the grandson of Otto, left a dent in my memory—how could one forget
that
name? Ego was vividly on display everywhere as dusk settled and all heavenly and earthly bodies swelled. There were supernovas and falling stars, asteroids and moons; every major celestial object had a swirl of light around it, but the whole event most evidently reflected the pull of Rupert Grant, a mysterious field-force that attracted everyone who encountered him.

Suddenly Grant's voice rose above the crowd. “Vera! Where is Vera?”

The next thing I knew, she was racing toward him. The call of her husband was primal, and she clearly lived for his attention.

Marisa Lauro appeared at my elbow. “You are enjoy yourself?” she asked.

“It's fine,” I said.

She eyed me carefully. “Vera, she likes you.”

“I hope so.” I could see she was a little drunk, and this seemed unappealing.

“But Rupert,” she said, “he isn't so sure.”

This surprised and unsettled me. Had Grant already formed a negative opinion of me? Had he actually communicated his dislike to Marisa?
The scenario was unlikely, and I suspected Marisa of playing some game with me.

“Don't let me worry you,” she said. “I wasn't meaning that. You are very sweet to me.”

I was eager to shift the subject. “What brought you to Capri?”

“As Rupert has told, I am a journalist,” she said.

“Whom do you write for?”

“Nobody. This is my future, this career.”

“I see.”

Her blouse was too short, exposing a patch of bare belly. My eyes gravitated there, but Marisa seemed not to mind. That was, after all, the purpose of the blouse.

“We should be friends,” she said, touching my arm.

I was relieved when a young Italian man with a gold chain around his neck called to Marisa.

“You must excuse,” she said, rushing off.

In the distance, I noticed Holly walking in the direction of the Faraglioni. Emboldened by the wine, I followed, catching up with her around a bend. She sat on a rock looking out to sea, as in a painting. The vermilion light streaked from the sky into the water.

“What a sunset,” I said.

She gulped, putting a hand over her throat. “You mustn't!”

“Mustn't?”

“You startled me.”

“I'm sorry. May I join you?”

“It's a free country.”

This wasn't exactly the welcome I hoped for, but I crouched beside her. “Do you like the party?”

“Quite a collection,” she said. “The island attracts them.”

“It attracted us.”

“How terribly flattering.”

“Will you stay here long?” I asked.

“On this rock?”

“On Capri.”

“I have no plans,” she said.

Every response she made closed a door, and I had to search for another entry. “You do research for him?” I asked, regretting the question before it had left my mouth.

Her look darkened. “You think I do nothing but fuck him, is that right?”

“I didn't mean—”

“You did,” she interrupted. “To be frank, Rupert asks very little of me, professionally. I believe he likes my company.”

I scampered onto safer ground. “So you were raised in England?”