I lay and wallowed, wondering why she had been so insistent about my leg. I even began to think I’d been a fool not to do as she suggested. After all, she knew what effect the steam would have on it. And then I ‘tried to remember whether radioactivity could be transmitted through steam. Surely the steam would be just plain water? Anyway it didn’t seem to matter.
After half an hour I got out, dressed and left the bathhouse. My body seemed overcome with lassitude so that it was a great effort to climb the steps to the hotel. I went through to the balcony and then stopped. Seated at a table with a tall glass in front of him was Hacket. He had seen me before I had time to turn back into the lounge. ‘Well, well — Mr. Farrell. This is a surprise. I see you’ve been having one of their damned energy-sapping baths. Guess you could do with a drink, eh? What will it be?’
‘Cognac and seltz,’ I said as I sat down.
He gave the order. ‘Just had a bath myself. It left me weak as a kitten. Feeling better for your holiday?’
‘Much better, thanks.’
‘That’s fine. You look better already.’
‘What brings you to Casamicciola?’ I asked him.
‘Oh, I just came out to have a look at the crater harbour of Ischia and this afternoon they’re taking me up to the top of Epomeo on a donkey.’ He gave a fat, jovial laugh. ‘Imagine me on a donkey. I’ll have to get a picture of that to show the folks at home. They tell me there’s a hermit lives on the top of this mountain. I wonder what the beggar pays the local authorities for a pitch like that, eh?’ Again the fat chuckle. My drink arrived and I sat back enjoying the warmth of the sun and the clink of ice in the glass. ‘Ever been to Pozzuoli, Mr. Farrell?‘he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Now there’s an interesting place. I went there yesterday — a lake crusted with plaster of Paris in the hollow of a crater. I don’t reckon there’s another place like that anywhere in the world. Just a twelve-inch thick crust over liquid lava. Couldn’t understand at first why the guide said we weren’t to walk too close to each other. Then over in one corner he showed us a place where the crust was broken away and there was stuff that looked like black mud bubbling up. Guess I understood then, all right.’ He chuckled. ‘And when you light a torch of paper and hold it to a crack, the whole rim of the crater, five hundred feet above you, begins to smoke as the sulphur gases are ignited. A very remarkable sight, Mr. Farrell. And they say it’s linked underground with Vesuvius.’