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‘Wow.’
‘That was Achille,’ I say. ‘Of course, once the war was won, he had to find his thrills elsewhere. He started out by racing his trusty old red bike – that and his politics earned him the affectionate nickname of the Red Devil. Soon he was raking in the prizes, but that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted a new challenge. He wanted to race cars.
‘In those days motor racing was the preserve of the rich, dominated by aristocrats and tycoons. Achille was a working-class lad from a little Tuscan town. He didn’t have the money for an expensive car, or wealthy friends who could sponsor him. But that wasn’t going to stop him. Through his Resistance connections he got hold of a clapped-out pre-war Alfa Romeo that had been mouldering in some dead Fascist’s garage, and he worked on it every spare minute he had. He got it fixed up, and then he started entering road races and winning those, too.’
I pause to catch my breath. To my astonishment, Richenda doesn’t chip in. She’s just listening, her hands gripping her coffee mug.
‘Formula One was in its infancy back then,’ I continue. ‘Italy’s racing teams were hungry for talented drivers with the nerve and determination to win. It wasn’t long before Achille began to attract attention. He was courted by some of the biggest names of the period. The biggest – and most determined – was Guido Comacchi.’
Richenda frowns. ‘Comacchi as in…’
‘As in the car, right. As in the car manufacturer,’ I correct myself. ‘Comacchi was a fierce personality and he usually got what he wanted, but here he met his match. Achille was strong in his communist convictions. He refused to accept money from someone who had, in his eyes, flagrantly collaborated with the Fascist regime. Comacchi pleaded with him – and this was a man who never pleaded. He argued that he’d only played along to survive, that he’d helped the local partisan network by letting them store arms and supplies on his premises. But to Achille that was almost worse. He declared that he would never work with adoppiogiochista, a double-dealer.
‘Comacchi was furious, but he kept up his onslaught. He so badly wanted Achille on his team that he was even prepared to take his insults. He lost out in the end, though. The Marxist publisher Pierfrancesco Legni, a member of one of Italy’s wealthiest families, had a passion for cars and he wanted to support a former partisan. He offered Achille a contract and all the money, resources and support he needed to build a team of his very own.’
I take a deep breath. My heart’s hammering, and I wonder how I’m going to get through the next part. Richenda leans forward.
‘Well?’
‘It was a dream deal. Achille signed the contract with Legni in the winter of 1953 and the Scuderia Guelfa, Italy’s first and only radical race team, was born. Now he had this opportunity, Achille didn’t want to waste any time. He decided that he would start his Formula One career by competing in the 1955 Argentine Grand Prix, which was held in January. That gave him just over a year to prepare. And of course that wasn’t all he had to do – Legni had promised him a team, and a team was what he wanted. So while he was competing in every race he could enter and working obsessively to perfect his own performance, he and Legni were scoping out premises, recruiting drivers and engineers, testing and adapting cars, deciding on uniforms. It was incredibly ambitious, even foolhardy. But they had Legni’s money and Achille’s skill and determination, and I actually think they might have made it.’
‘I have a bad feeling about this,’ Richenda says.
‘Yes. You have to know that Achille was a proud Tuscan andromituzzanoto the core. He was preparing to embark on a whole new career, to travel the globe, but there was no way he’d miss the Coppa Valdana. This was a road race that set off from Romituzzo in late September, and this year it would be even more special because he was coming home as a hero. The people of Romituzzo loved Achille, and Achille loved them. It was an emotional day for everyone.
‘The morning of the race was sunny, warm and joyous. You can’t imagine the rapture when Achille pulled up to the starting line in his much-loved Alfa Romeo with his old schoolfriend and fellow partisan, Enzo Sangallo, as navigator. The route was crowded with people from all over the Valdana and beyond, all desperate to catch a glimpse of the Red Devil. He took a comfortable lead early on, and he maintained that lead until…’
I have to take another breath, to steady myself before I go on. Richenda’s watching me. ‘The race route passed through the medieval hill town of San Damiano,’ I say. ‘The road to San Damiano is winding and steep, surrounded by trees and the occasional little cluster of houses. If you’re coming from Romituzzo, there’s an embankment on the right-hand side – that’s where the spectators were – and a steep slope on the left. Achille was approaching the gates of the city when a little girl broke free from her parents, slipped under the barricade and wandered out into the road. Achille swerved left.’
‘Oh.’ Richenda claps a hand to her mouth.
‘His car veered off the road, struck a tree and rolled over several times before crashing into a ditch. The little girl was safe. Enzo survived with a few breaks and bruises, but Achille…’ Images rise up before me: those grainy newsprint photos of twisted metal and shattered glass. I swallow, hard. ‘Achille was killed on impact, impaled by the steering column. It was instant. I hope it was instant. He was given a hero’s funeral, of course. His former comrades – those who’d made it through the war – walked behind the hearse in their red kerchiefs, heads bowed. His coffin was draped in the red flag and the livery, newly designed, of the Scuderia Guelfa. Visit the cemetery at Romituzzo any day of the year, and you’ll find red roses on his grave.’ I’ve practised that bit so many times, but I’m still blinking back tears as I speak. ‘And now I really should give you that line I promised,’ I say, relieved.
‘Line?’ Richenda looks lost. ‘Oh, yes, the line. Hang on.’ She takes out a tissue and wipes her eyes, blows her nose. ‘Right, darling, fire away.’
‘In December 1953, Achille Infuriati was at a party at Legni’s house in Florence when he met a young Englishwoman who was in the city to study drawing. Her name was Margaret Craye, and she was my grandmother.’
‘Well, fuck,’ Richenda says. ‘And I suppose they…’
‘Yes.’
‘And then he…’
‘Yes.’
For a moment she just stares at me, and then, suddenly, she’s all business. ‘And what’s your angle on all this? What’s the point of the book?’
‘It’s a love story,’ I say. ‘Just that. A love story, across class and cultural divides, in the troubled context of postwar Florence.’
‘Right,’ Richenda says. ‘Yes, good. And is it doable? What sources do you have?’
‘I have two boxes crammed with all kinds of stuff that belonged to Granny: letters, newspaper clippings, diaries, photographs. There should be material about Achille and his sister Stella in the archives of the ANPI – that’s the partisans’ association – Stella was a courier for the Resistance. Pierfrancesco Legni died quite a few years ago, but he’s bound to have had papers and maybe the family will let me see them.’
‘Anyone still alive who might remember your chap?’
‘Some of his comrades might still be going. The group he belonged to was predominantly young, though Achille was on the young side even so. We do know Stella survived the war, but we don’t know much else about her. She was a year younger again, and by all accounts every bit as brave as Achille was, but she kind of vanishes from the sources after 1945. If she’s alive, though, I’ll find her.’ I say it with a confidence I don’t feel, but Richenda seems convinced.
‘And your Italian’s up to all this, is it?’ she asks.
