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‘Oh, no, I’m having great fun.’ And it’s true. In the hour or so since my arrival I’ve heard any number of funny and scandalous stories about famous drivers, all accompanied by Cecco’s acerbic commentary. Very little of it’s usable and some probably counts as defamation, but it’s all been highly entertaining. And of course Carmelo’s Achille story is pure gold. I’ve made him repeat it three times with my phone on ‘record’ just to make sure I got all the details, though I’m pretty sure he didn’t object.
‘Well, make sure you get Cecco to talk,’ Totò says. ‘Don’t let him get away with sitting there sniping at everyone else. He’s the only nativeromituzzanohere, and he’s old enough to remember Achille even if he likes to pretend otherwise.’ He throws Cecco a warning look and goes back inside.
‘Is that true?’ I turn to Cecco. ‘Did you know Achille?’
The old man grimaces and leans back in his chair. ‘Me? Not really. I was just a kid.’
‘Come on, Cecco,’ Vito chips in. Vito’s a silver-haired Neapolitan who (he says) once ran over Guido Comacchi’s foot when he was a test driver back in the Seventies. ‘You were just a kid when Moses came down from the mountain.’
‘I tell you, I didn’t know him,’ Cecco says. ‘My big brother Sandro did, though. He and Achille used to race against each other back in the day.’
‘You mean after the war?’ I ask.
Cecco shakes his head. ‘No, this must have been right at the start of it. Thirty-nine, forty. Just street racing, you know, local lads on mopeds.’
‘But Achille can’t have been more than twelve,’ I say. ‘Surely that wasn’t legal?’
A gale of laughter erupts around me. The men hoot and thump and lean on each other as if I’ve just cracked the world’s most hilarious joke. Finally, Carmelo takes pity on me. ‘It was a different time,’ he says, leaning forward to pat my arm. ‘And the likes of Achille – well, he wouldn’t worry too much about the law anyway.’
‘Oh God,’ Vito wheezes.
‘You could have some great times on the roads around here,’ Ettore, a Florentine, pipes up from the edge of the group. ‘If I still had my bike, I’d get out there myself.’
‘Bullshit,’ Cecco says. ‘Anyway, Sandro was best pals with Enzo growing up – you know, Enzo Sangallo. He was Achille’s co-driver in the…’
‘In the Coppa Valdana,’ I say.
‘Right. And of course they were both in awe of Achille. Everyone was.’
‘But…?’ I sense there’s a ‘but’ here, and I really want to find out what it is.
‘I don’t know,’ Cecco says. ‘Sandro never let me tag along with him. I was too little. But, look…’ He sighs. ‘Street racing, getting out with your mates – it’s meant to be fun. Everyone wants to win, of course. I know Sandro did, but he didn’t mind losing so long as it was a fair competition and he got to blow off some steam. For Achille, though, it was something else.’
‘He took it seriously,’ I say.
‘Brava.’ Cecco’s mouth is a thin line. ‘You went up against Achille, you were competing for second. Personally, I wouldn’t call that much of a good time.’
‘Achille was destined for greater things,’ Carmelo says gently.
‘And didn’t he know it,’ Cecco says. ‘Anyway, that’s my Achille story, such as it is. And I never tried to make it in Formula One like some of these bozos, so I don’t have any funny anecdotes for you.’
‘I don’t suppose you knew Achille’s family at all?’ I ask.
Cecco shrugs. ‘Not well, but it was a small town back then. You couldn’t avoid knowing anyone. Why?’
‘I was wondering what happened to his sister Stella.’
There’s a generalised murmur, a chorus of sucked teeth. Vito shakes his head, and Carmelo stares into his glass and says ‘Bedda matri!’ which I think is Sicilian for ‘yikes’.
‘Now, Cecco,’ Ettore warns, ‘mind what you say.’
Cecco snorts. ‘What is there to mind? The facts are the facts.’
‘And what are the facts?’ I ask.
‘One fact is,’ Cecco says, ‘that Stella Infuriati ran off one day in 1945 and never came back. And the other fact is that my sister’s young man Davide went with her.’
‘Ah,’ I say. And I’m feeling foolish now because it’s so simple. There wasn’t any need for revolution or acid baths. It was just a teenage love story. ‘And I suppose nobody knows where she went.’
