Turquoise, mint, pistachio, cerise, orange striped, caffe latte, powder blue: every delectable taxi on the island of Capri was owned by the Maronti family of Marina Grande. Since 1950 peachy-bottomed film stars had bounced around in their joyously open-topped cars with signature colourful awnings and leather bench-seats. The business was lucrative; the Maronti’s were rich.
Lucrezia Maronti, Mama matriarch – dark tan and deep-cut necklines – wanted to spend her days at the beach. It was time to pass things along. Having come of age, this meant Piero Maronti, eldest son. There was just one problem: Piero could not drive.
‘Have mercy!’
‘But what sort of a MAN cannot drive?’ Mamma was hitting the calculator down on the desk.
‘He is clearly not a man yet, still a boy.’ Nonna said, laughing from the corner of the office, where she sat with her legs opened wide to the fan.
‘A taxi business run by someone who cannot drive! It’s absurdity. If your father could see you.’ Mamma began making the sign of the cross.
The latest attempt had been his fifth and things had – if it was possible – gone worse than ever. A reverse parallel park, not worth thinking about. Piero found himself saying,
‘I will take it again, Mamma. I will pass it before the summer is out.’
‘You can have until the end of the month, and after that we need to think again about who can take on this business.’
The test was booked for 27th August. The date loomed: it was just 14 days away.
After this conversation, Piero had taken the funicolare up to the piazzetta and sat in Caffe Centrale, smoking cigarettes and looking out for Gigliola.
He had been in love with Gigliola since childhood. Gigi, and her identical twin Carla were nineteen, and sour and sweet as lemons. They were part of the Lolitzo family that reigned over Marina Piccola from a vast villa perched on the hill, along the fragrant lane where little garages housed run-around vespas: these were the sort of Capreses who did not need taxis. As babies, Gigi’s mother, Lucia would race around the island with her twin girls in twin moses baskets sandwiched into the back seat of her Cinquecento. Gigi and Carla had both passed their driving tests first time.
The families operated in different circles, oil and vinegar in a shallow dish: one old, one new; one Piccola, one Grande. Piero and Gigi had become acquainted back in Rome, they both studied Literature at the university where Piero had just graduated top of the class. He still hadn’t told his family that he had swapped away from his business degree – a secret he had confided to Gigi at a party late one night.
In Capri she scarcely spoke to him. All summer she had been dating an American named, Brett or Brat as Piero called him privately. Perhaps she was with him, he thought gloomily as he sank lower into his seat.
Then suddenly she was there, arm-in-arm with Carla. They were talking animatedly – about what? She saw him and waved, ‘Ciao, Piero!’
Carla began talking loudly into her mobile phone and he was glad to get Gigi alone.
‘How are you?’ she asked.
‘Ok. How about you? You seem happy.’
‘I’m not, I’m pretending.’ And turning away from Carla, she continued, ‘results came out today and I flunked the summer exam. I’ll have to retake it before I can go back to school.’
‘Which text?’
‘The Leopard.’
It was Piero’s favourite. He didn’t know what to say. Carla was off the phone.
‘We’ve been invited to Diane Von Furstenberg’s boat for Ferragosto!’ she said, clapping her hands. Carla was studying fashion in Milan and knew everyone on the island.
‘See you Piero.’ Gigi said. The twins walked off, stopping at tables here and there to greet friends, as though it was all their own private party.
He retreated to the bar until the bells tolled midnight: the girls did not return. He pulled out his phone and messaged Gigi.
‘I have an idea. Help me pass my driving test and I’ll help you pass The Leopard.’
An instant later, the screen flashed blue, ‘Deal.’
The only time Capri’s roads were quiet enough for driving lessons was very late at night. Daytime was impossible. From the arrival of the first ferry the roads roared to life with buses too long for hairpin bends, toppling suitcase wagons bound for smart hotels, buzzing scooters and a fleet of two hundred colourful taxis.
For ten days in a row Piero and Gigi met on the church steps of the piazzetta at two am. She would vape, and they would read The Leopard aloud together, making sense of it. Piero loved the hound, Bendicò most of all, his large paws and pink nose. Then, they would get into his favourite taxi and drive, Gigi calling ‘Faster! Faster! Faster!’ and hitting her hands on the dashboard.
Once they got to the western point of the island, she would make him practise manoeuvres. On the tenth night they parked on a steep hill and she held her palm over his eyes, and told him to find the biting point with the clutch. Her voice was soft and firm.
‘Really it should be second nature, Piero’ she said. ‘You must feel it. Feel what to do.’
He performed the hill start perfectly and his eyes shone. He parked a little further up the hill and turned to her,
‘Gigi…’
The air was fragrant, and they were quite alone aside from the listening lemon trees and night-flying insects.
‘Piero-’
‘Gigi’
‘-we’re rolling backwards!’ she shrieked, pouncing on the hand-break. They began to laugh and Gigi jumped out of the car.
‘Let’s go down to the sea’, she said.
‘Not without this’ – Piero waved The Leopard at her. They had reached the wonderful description of the duke getting out of the bath. Gigi read it aloud in a playful voice and Piero ran into the water puffing out his body like a prince.
Their night lessons stopped for Ferragosto. That day, Piero went down to swim, not at his family’s beach but at Marina Piccola where the Lolitzo’s spent their days at Lo Scoglio de Serene, a beach club with fluttering blue umbrellas and loungers on rocks jutting into the sea. From the public beach and he could just see them, lolling about and leaping in perfect arcs from the diving board into the blue.
That night the girls would be going to DVF’s party on the yacht. Unable to stop himself, Piero found that he was driving down to the harbour and watching the boat all lit up with lights, the fireworks overhead. He could see the words, ‘OWN IT’ spelled out in bright lights in the sky.
Own it, Piero, Own It, he thought to himself, and sighed. He opened the glove compartment and pulled out the dog-eared copy of The Leopard and read a little. Tancredi and Angelica were courting; stealing secret kisses in closed-up wings of the palazzo. The tension was unbearable, he closed the book. At dawn he saw Gigi and Carla stumbling ashore with a hulk of a man. Then Carla was at the window, ‘what are you doing here? Are you stalking us Piero Maronti?’ She threw her heels onto the back seat and opened the door.
‘I saw you at the beach earlier, watching us’ Carla continued. ‘Can you take us home?’
Piero’s colour deepened; he was glad of the dark.
‘Gigliola!!’ she yelled down towards her sister.
Finally, Gigi appeared beneath the arm of the tall oaf. Piero could hardly stand it.
‘Hey man’ Brat said, slamming the taxi door too hard.
They sat three along the back seat, the twins falling asleep with their heads resting on his broad shoulders. The men caught eyes in the rear-view mirror and Piero looked away.
He drove them home fast, with expert precision. It was the best driving he had ever done, and Gigi had missed it. At the top of their lane, he parked on the verge and they tumbled out onto the hill. Carla, Brat and then Gigi, who bent over and started to be sick. It was Piero who held back her hair and gave her water.
The next night, Piero did not come to the church steps at 2am. Nor the next night, nor the next, nor the next.
***
The presence of Gigliola Lolitza at the Taxi HQ was not a familiar sight. She wafted through the garage in white linen trousers and a silk top knotted at the neck. She found the office where Lucrezia was smoking behind a vast desk.
‘Gigliola, is it you?’ Lucrezia said, leaning forwards.
‘Yes. I came to see if Piero was around…?’
‘Piero! No, I haven’t set eyes on that boy for a few days.’
‘I must see him.’
‘He’s not here, I think he’s hiding out before his next driving test. The odds are not in his favour.’
Gigi wanted her book back – the friendly Piero copy with its annotations and folded down pages. But more than that she wanted to see him; he had gone cold on her and in this silence had grown loud in her thoughts.
‘Ok. Well, if you see him, please tell him I’ve gone to Rome. How long until his test?’
‘Three days’ she said holding up 3 fat fingers and thrusting them forwards. ‘Three days.’
Gigi boarded the ferry and left the island.
***
It was as though he could sense that she had gone. The summer had fattened into its grotesque final days, figs burst and rotted on the side of the road and still the ferries kept churning out the people. He had heard from Mamma that she had come to look for him, Mamma had teased him then, but he knew from her messages that it was only to get her book back.
It was the day of the test. Piero sat in Marina Grande looking at the line forming for taxis. Vast wheelie bags bombing along the cobbles, the fray of the queue and its endless argy-bargy giving way to expressions of delight when finally, they were seated in the open-topped cars and speeding off, away from there. His father used to boast that he could drive up to the piazzetta quicker than the funicolare; Piero believed it. He stood up and stretched.
‘Piero!’ he heard and turned. Gigi was running towards him and jumping at him, throwing her arms around his neck.
‘I passed, I passed, I passed!’ she said delightedly.
Despite himself he swelled with pride.
‘Yes!’ he said. ‘That’s wonderful.’
‘They asked me to write about the dog. I thought of you and of course, I knew it all.’ She stuck out her tongue and held up her hands like paws.
‘Can we go for a drive?’
‘I’ve got my test in two hours.’
‘Perfetto! Just time for a final practise.’
Piero drove to the far end of the island to the beach where they got out and lay down flat on the stones, the rocks hard under their heads.
‘I need a plan, Gigi’ he said.
‘I need a pillow’, she replied, leaning up on her elbow. He unbuttoned his shirt, balled it up and laid it beneath her head.
‘Are you flirting with me?’ she asked, casting him a sideways glance.
‘Maybe’ he replied.
It was time to go. They drove there together in silence, something hanging in the air unsaid. They arrived at the test centre, and already the lardy invigilator was coming out of the bungalow-office, clipboard in hand. He had once been his father’s rival vying for the taxi business but had ended up a driving instructor. The sight of the bungalow and the lardy man did something to Piero’s insides.
‘You know I’ve always loved you, Gigliola Lolitzo.’
She turned to look at him.
‘Drive!’
And they were speeding off towards the ferry, and for the first time in history a Capri taxi was leaving the island bound for Naples. On its front seat were Gigliola and Piero, kissing madly and the sea was blue, blue, blue.
A Little Bird Loves
