‘Would you? Golly, I’d far rather have frantic!’ says Marcie. ‘But then, when you love your husband there’s always fun to be had – the best kind. Am I right?’ She smiles wickedly, and winks at Clare, and Clare can only nod, embarrassed, because fun isn’t a word she has ever associated with Boyd.
The days are uniformly hot and bright. Clouds sometimes gather in the afternoon, but they slink sheepishly into the night as it falls, and are gone by morning. As to how exactly Leandro Cardetta fills his days, Clare can only wonder. He comes and goes, and is rarely in one room for long. On the third afternoon, as the sun begins to mellow, Leandro suggests they join in the passeggiata with Gioia’s signori. Marcie declines with a headache, lying across a long couch in the shade like a fallen leaf; Boyd looks up from his desk when Clare goes to fetch him, and shakes his head.
‘I’m on to something here, darling. You carry on without me,’ he says.
‘Please come, Boyd. I really don’t want to go on my own.’
‘Don’t be silly. Of course you must go, if Cardetta’s asked you to.’
‘But I just… don’t know him all that well yet. I’d far rather you came too. Won’t you?’ The thought of being alone with their host unsettles her; though he’s only ever solicitous and polite, still there’s something arch and knowing about him.
‘Not now, Clare. Take Pip with you, if you need company.’ Clare goes back down to where Leandro is waiting, and he smiles as though he can sense her reserve.
With Pip, they stroll along Via Garibaldi first one way and then the other. People are not quite as ready to snub Leandro as they were Marcie. When he greets them it’s with a subtle positioning of his body that makes them stop walking; he stands just enough in their way that brushing past him would be obvious and rude. Clare can almost follow their conversation in Italian, but the southern accent is strange to her; some words elude her, and as she chases after them she misses what comes next. Pip’s face mirrors incomprehension, but when Leandro introduces him to someone, he shakes the men’s hands with a confident buona sera.
‘This is one of our distinguished doctors here in Gioia, Dr Angelini,’ says Leandro, as Clare shakes the hand of a short, fat man whose face and grey hair shine with grease. ‘Well, I say distinguished doctor, what I really mean is revolting quack. This man fleeces the poor of Gioia, selling fake medicines supplied to him by his brother, the druggist; and he examines the women far too enthusiastically – I’m sure you don’t need me to elaborate. I don’t believe he ever even graduated, and he’s the first to flee his post for Rome when cholera breaks out. Don’t worry, he can’t speak a word of English,’ he says, all in the same convivial tone, as Dr Angelini smiles and tilts his head obsequiously. Clare struggles not to show her surprise, and Pip gives a quiet guffaw before he can help himself. The doctor’s eyes narrow suspiciously, and Cardetta says something to him, evenly and with no trace of inappropriate humour. The man inclines his head again, but glares at Pip as they part.
Clare steals a sideways glance at Leandro Cardetta as they walk on, and his smile is roguish in response.
‘That was so funny!’ says Pip, and Clare almost hushes him censoriously, then realises that to do so could be a slight to Leandro.
‘You didn’t approve of my introduction, Mrs Kingsley?’ he says.
‘I was just a little… caught unawares,’ she says. They’re walking west into the glaring sun, and her eyes are fighting the light.
‘I’d hoped you’d find it refreshing. Unpleasant people deserve to be mocked, after all.’ He shrugs. His way of speaking is unusual; the New York accent is quite soft for one who learnt English there, and the imprint of Italian intonation is on every word.
‘Why trouble yourself to know them, if you dislike them so?’
‘Ah, alas, Mrs Kingsley, in order to be somebody, you must know everybody.’
‘What kind of somebody do you want to be?’ says Pip. He has become far too familiar with their host since the driving lessons began. And yet Leandro Cardetta doesn’t seem to mind at all, and Clare wonders then if all her misgivings – about Gioia del Colle, about Federico and Leandro – are only in her mind, brought on by the tension she senses in Boyd. Jumping at shadows.
‘I want to be listened to, Philip,’ says Leandro Cardetta. ‘I am no idealist. I know that for a terrone like me, their respect will always have to be bought. But however I must get it, I will get it.’ Clare says nothing, and he glances at her again. ‘You don’t approve, Mrs Kingsley?’
‘Oh, I’m sure I know little enough about it.’ His smile turns a little stiff.
‘Ah, I sense that old British maxim, hovering on your tongue – that respect must be earned to be of value,’ he says. ‘Your husband has said the same thing to me before, but it isn’t always true. If the people I have to deal with only understand money and power, then that’s the path I must take with them. I learnt in New York there’s a way to get to everybody, you only have to know how to find it. And I didn’t work my way up from nothing over there to be dismissed by people who’ve done nothing in life but sit and squander it, growing fatter and lazier and stupider all the while.’
‘But why come back, then, if you’ll be forced to be friends with people you don’t like?’ says Pip.
‘Friends? Oh, I have no friends here. But this is my home, in spite of all of it. I remember these streets from when I was a tiny child. This stink…’ He takes a deep breath. ‘The taste of it. Can you know what that means, Pip? Perhaps you’re too young yet. I lived in America for a long time, but every day – every day – I thought of coming home. Now I’m here, and I’m not wanted. Well, too bad. I’m home. And home I will stay.’ There’s no room for manoeuvre in this whatsoever. Clare wonders how often Marcie has come up against the same brick wall, and feels sorry for her.
‘What business were you in in New York, Mr Cardetta?’ says Clare. ‘Will you pursue the same business here?’
‘Waste disposal.’ He smiles at her, pleased by her surprise. ‘Not what you were expecting? There’s a hell of a lot of people in New York, creating a hell of a lot of garbage. And no, those days are over. There’s almost no rubbish in Gioia – haven’t you noticed? What the poor don’t eat, the dogs do.’
They walk on a little further, and pass a group of three men as immaculately dressed as Leandro, standing at a corner with their waistcoats buttoned up and gold watch chains catching the light, and no dust on their shoes. Leandro stiffens; it makes him look taller, stronger.
‘Buona sera, signori,’ he greets them, inclining his head but not stopping. Clare starts to smile but stops in the face of their blatant hostility. One of the men spits, off to one side rather than at them, but the insult is clear.
‘You’ve no right to speak to us, cafone,’ that man says, darkly, in English. ‘You’ve no right to wear those clothes, or live in that house.’
‘You look well, Cozzolino. The season agrees with you,’ Leandro says mildly. Once they’ve passed Clare feels the men’s eyes glare after them, and she daren’t look back.
‘That man was so rude… what’s a caffoney?’ says Pip.
‘Cafone means peasant riff-raff. Don’t look so horrified, Mrs Kingsley. Cozzolino doesn’t deserve to be respected, let alone feared. He’s the worst kind of Gioia signori. He thinks his rank is God-given, and excuses all and any excess. But it’ll catch up to him, sooner or later.’
‘I don’t know how you can stand to be spoken to that way. It was horrible,’ says Clare.
‘Sooner or later, they’ll have to get used to me. I mean to give them no choice.’ He glances at her again as they walk back towards Piazza Plebiscito. ‘I never thought a Briton would be so shocked to see class prejudice in action, I must say.’