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‘In fact, I was. My father had a very liberal attitude to childrearing. My mother died when I was born, so he raised me. I went everywhere with him and did whatever I liked. Of course, you’ve seen some of the evidence.’ She nods towards the photograph on the far wall. ‘I’m afraid I could be rather a pain.’
‘I’m sure you weren’t,’ I say, not entirely truthfully.
‘Oh, I’m quite certain I was, but it was a great education. Sadly, my own children turned out terribly conventional and had no interest in staying up late or talking about politics. Anyway, I was at that party, although I was just eight years old – no, nine – and I shall try to recall everything I can.’
‘Do you mind if I record this?’
‘Of course not. You must do whatever you need.’ She watches as I fiddle with my phone and put it on the arm of the sofa, pointed towards her. ‘Is it on?’
‘Yes.’
Rosa shakes her head. ‘Marvellous things, these phones. Well, like I say, I wasveryyoung when that particular party took place. I stayed for a while and then went to bed, not that anyone would have made me. But I remember a few things, and one of those things is Achille.’
‘He really made such an impression?’ I ask.
‘I should say so.’ She smiles. ‘My father’s circle was full of serious, vocational people: writers, artists, actors, musicians. They might have been great performers in public, but they were often quite introverted, and they saw our house as a safe environment. So they were all standing or sitting around, clustered into little groups and having the most horrendously earnest discussions. And then in comes Achille… well, how can I describe him? He must have arrived a good two hours after the party started, and he’d come straight from the garage – apparently there had been some emergency he’d had to deal with, some mechanical issue with one of the cars. He’d taken off his overalls, at least. But his clothes were rumpled and his hair was dishevelled and he had this streak of black grease…’ Rosa traces a line with one finger, across her cheekbone. ‘He was quite something.’
‘What did you think of him?’
‘Oh, I thought he was wonderful. Divine. You know, I had this book of Greek myths that one of my father’s friends had given me – I loved that book – and it was just as if Achilles, the real Achilles, had walked into my living room.Aristos achaion.’
‘The best of the Greeks,’ I say reflexively.
‘Brava. Of course, you’re a classicist,’ Rosa says. ‘I google everyone I meet – well, Frida does, and then she tells me the interesting bits. Which college, by the way?’
‘I was at St Gilbert’s.’
‘Oh, lovely. Lankester Hall.’ Rosa taps herself on the chest. ‘Of course, it doesn’t exist any more. Anyway, Achille. You know, I’ve wondered so many times since then whether he knew the effect he was having. I might even suspect him of making an entrance. But I don’t know, really. From everything I’ve heard about him, he was a man who could never be anything other than himself, no matter how much it disconcerted people.’
‘Maybe he wanted to disconcert them,’ I say.
Rosa laughs. ‘You could well be right.’
‘Was my grandmother already at the party then? Do you remember?’
‘Yes, she was,’ Rosa says. ‘Now, this is where it gets a little blurry, because that party became a sort of landmark. Especially for my father and for Rita, your grandmother, and really for everyone who cared about Achille. So I can’t always tell what I actually remember – what I saw and understood at the time – and what I heard about later. But Rita was certainly there already, she and her young man.’
‘Really? She had a boyfriend already?’
‘Yes. He was one of my father’s poets, very promising, very serious. His name was… Roberto, that’s right. Roberto Borsetti. That’s why Rita was there in the first place – she came along with him. But she went home with Achille.’
‘Wow.’
‘Are you shocked?’ Rosa asks.
‘Oh, no,’ I say. ‘But my grandmother was always so correct. I can’t imagine her just ditching her boyfriend and going off with someone else.’
‘Well, our circle didn’t care much for bourgeois morality. And she was young, and it was Achille, for heaven’s sake. I think half the people there would have gone home with him if they had the chance. But they didn’t get the chance, because he wanted Rita and she wanted him. From the moment Papà introduced them – and I don’t think for a moment that he knew what he was doing, though he always liked to take the credit – your grandmother and Achille were absorbed in one another. It was absolutely obvious. I don’t think poor Roberto even tried to put up a fight, though apparently he did get rather drunk and proposition Anna Magnani. Not that he stood a chance with her, either.’
Well, I think. Fair enough.
For the next half hour or so, Rosa tells me every detail of the party she can remember: who was there and with whom, the overheard conversations, the fight that erupted between a poet and a critic over the merits of Russian Futurism. (‘Ingrid Bergman broke that one up, if I remember rightly.’) And in the midst of it all, Granny and Achille: heads together, talking intently in the corner of the room and then slipping out into the night, hand in hand, saying goodbye to no one.
‘I was spying on them,’ Rosa says frankly. ‘I was too young to understand properly, but I’d read a great number of love stories – Papà never kept me from reading anything, you can imagine – and I knew what I was seeing. It fascinated me.’
‘And that was the first time Achille came to the house?’ I ask.
‘The first and only. It wasn’t really his element. He spent most of his time with his team and the rest with your grandmother, and that was all he wanted. He didn’t need my father to be his friend.’ Rosa laughs. ‘Oh, Papà tried, of course. He was a real mother hen, always wanting to keep people around him and tend to their needs, but he got nowhere with Achille. It’s not that he was cold, or rude – far from it, he simply wanted to get on with his work and he didn’t see the point in wasting his time socialising. The Scuderia Guelfa was a revolutionary project and it was really Achille who drove it, if you’ll pardon the pun. My father invested his money, but Achille gave his soul. That’s why it couldn’t go on after his death.’
