For a moment she seemed about to burst out laughing. Then she said quickly, ‘Roberto is employed by my husband. He think he is my watch-dog and he does not approve of my taking handsome young Englishmen out to Santo Francisco.’ She held the door open for me. ‘Come,’ she said gaily. ‘I have arrange everything. We will have lunch at Portici and then we have an appointment to keep with your American friend at Pompeii. Remember?” She wrinkled her nose at me. ‘I think it will be very dull. I ask him only because you are so stupid with me yesterday. But it does not matter. We have all the night.’
Outside Roberto was just putting my suitcases in the boot. He went round to the door and held it open. Zina paused as she was getting in and said something to him in Italian. She spoke softly and very fast. His eyes flicked to my face and then he grinned at her rather sheepishly. He was like a small urchin that has been promised a sweet.
‘What did you say to Roberto?’ I asked as I subsided into the cream upholstery beside her.
She glanced at me quickly. ‘I say he will have the whole afternoon to sit in a cafe and drink and slap the waitress’s bottom.’ She laughed at the expression on my face. ‘Now I have shock you. You are so very, very English, you know.’ She slipped her hand under my arm and snuggled down into the leather. ‘Relax now, please. And remember, this is Italy. Do you think I do not know what a boy like Roberto wants? You forget I am born in the slums of Napoli.’
I didn’t say anything and the car slid out through the big wrought-iron lacework of the gates and swung south down the Via Posillipo towards Naples. It was wonderful to feel the cool air on my face. Heavy clouds were banked up across the sky. It was oppressively close and the ash-heap of Vesuvius stood out almost white against the louring black of the sky. ‘Did you see Vesuvius last night?’ I asked her.
She nodded. ‘For three nights it has been like that. From Santo Francisco we shall see it much more clearly.’ She sighed. ‘Perhaps it is because of Vesuvio that the women of Napoli are like they are.’
‘How do you mean?’ I asked.
She looked at me from under arched eyebrows. ‘Our passions are like that volcano,’ she said huskily.
I stared at the mountain rising so quiet and serene above the sea. ‘Do you think it will erupt again?’ I asked.
‘I do not know. You must talk to the scientists at osservatore. But I do not think they know very much. When you have seen Pompeii, you will understand how powerful that mountain is. It is unpredictable and terrible — like a woman with a love she must destroy in order to hold.’