LITMIR.BIZ

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that the Porta Appia.

      But Emily missed the junction, because she didn’t realise that they had to turn off, as all her rapture and her attention were focused on the grey-green Tiber, which was following its course, quietly and mysteriously, between its Travertine walls.

      “I love the Tiber,” Emily said. “Do you, Signor Marrone?”

      “Yes, of course, of course, the Tiber is bellissimo” (why not?) he replied weakly: “But the Signora has driven the wrong way - sbagliato! We should have driven to the Baths of Caracalla, because the road to the Porta Appia goes from there.”

      “Oh,” said Emily, “but we haven’t gone too far in the wrong direction. Maybe we could just reverse a little bit back to the junction....”

      And to Enzo’s horror she heaved straight away at the gear lever. After the car died on her twice with a protesting screech, she managed to find reverse, and now the poor car for a change made its familar lurch, but this time backwards.

      “We’ll just drive there along the curb, so as not to interfere with the traffic,” Emily announced and drove off with a fearless trust in the Lord. “Agatha could you please watch out the window for me a bit...you know what my neck’s like.”

      Agatha smiled gently and watched helpfully out the window: “I don’t see anything ominous just yet, there’s just a couple of cars at the far end of the intersection, although they are approaching pretty quickly,” she added thoughtfully, and turning to the petrified Enzo she went on: “My friend has a very short neck and she can never see behind her when she is reversing. I always take care of that for her.”

      Suddenly they were surrounded, with cars racing round them and buzzing like a swarm of wasps around a pot of honey, and the noise of horns of every tone and pitch you could think of was assailing their ears.

      “Signora - prego -please, per favore, per cortesia! You can’t reverse here, go a bit further on, I beg you! We can turn round later.” Enzo mopped the sweat from his brow.

      Emily took her foot off the accelerator, cast a chastising look towards the annoying vehicles around her, who apparently didn’t feel constrained by any ban on use of the horn (such an ill-disciplined, emotional people!) and rammed the car into first gear with a screech. Once again they started along the Tiber.

      Then at the Ponte Subicio Emily turned abruptly and sharply to the south, without having properly got into the correct lane, and only the outstanding reaction and braking abilities of the line of traffic to her left prevented their trip to the Via Appia Antica from ending there on that bridge in a massively smashed-up bumper.

      The other road-users would all have to drink a restorative pick-me-up when they got home - Camomile or Campari, depending on their age and constitution - but Emily knew nothing of this. Unburdened by cares she cheerfully drove up the wide road that led to the ancient Porta San Paolo.

      Enzo sat still and worn out in the back. The sudden swerve had left him a bit overwhelmed. He prayed quietly and fervently to the blessed Anthony, which was something he hadn’t done for many years. Yes indeed, he pledged a large candle to Il Santo, and he even went so far as to assure St Anthony of a percentage share in the net profit of the entire enterprise, if he would just emerge alive from this car.

      ‘Just look over there, my dear, that’s the Pyramid of Cestius,” said the enraptured Emily to Agatha, and cut across a heavily laden vegetable cart. The unfortunate greengrocer had to brake so sharply, that a carefully stacked pile of Sicilian fennel as well as several dozen bundles of early summer onions from the Bay of Naples fell on the road and mingled with all the abundant dust down there.

      The greengrocer, a swarthy, bloated and thick-set man, scrambled smartly out of his car, waved his arms in the air, and started on a long tirade about his hard life and the large number of family members that he had to feed. Then he sent a flood of ripe Roman curses in the direction of the Englishwomen’s rattling clumsy car, whose occupants noticed nothing because they were keeping their eyes resolutely fixed in silent joy upon the noble outline of the Pyramid of Cestius.

      Enzo had no doubt heard everything but had shrunk so small on his seat and was so withdrawn in on himself, that no one would have seen anything of him.

      “Go left, Signora, and keep going along the wall,” he said with a weak voice, in an attempt to prevent a renewed suicide attempt by driving backwards, while Emily - undaunted and brisk - drove through the old Porta Ostiense. He then shut his eyes so that he could enjoy a couple of minutes peace and quiet. There was probably nothing that could go wrong if this monster behind the steering wheel just continued to creep along the Aurelian Wall.

      “Oh Agatha, look, we are just leaving the city,” Emily called. “The breath of the Roman Campagna is wafting me along, the fragrant air of the southern meadows.” She leaned her head back and breathed in deeply and reverently, while she kept her shortsighted eyes fixed on the cypresses, which were much more numerous here, and in fact almost seemed to be the guardians of the gate to the Campagna.

      “I am so happy that we managed to overcome our ailments,” Agatha suggested, “what a beautiful day! Happiness is still the best cure for the body’s infirmities. My spine has got much better and hardly hurts at all anymore, and you have lasted exceptionally well, Emily!” Both were so happy and grateful and so wrapped up in the unfolding magic of that ancient rural landscape, that Emily unawares had shifted across to the left-hand lane and was comfortably driving along it, as if she was in Merrie England. And Agatha of course hadn’t noticed either. All the time there were vehicles coming towards them on the same side of the road, and only when Emily shot in between two onrushing cars and the drivers were throwing their arms in the air and pointing with their fingers at the side of their heads with anger in their eyes, did Agatha furrow her brow and draw Emily’s attention to the unsettling traffic conditions:

      “Look, Emily, why are we suddenly driving towards all these oncoming cars?”

      “It’s their undisciplined driving style,” said Emily calmly and unshaken continued to drive: “Think of the zebra crossing at the Colosseum, where all those crazy people were charging across, even though there were pedestrians there.”

      Agatha was getting anxious: “That was a bit close, Emily! I don’t know why you are driving in between the cars, but in the long run this is going to get pretty exhausting. And why are all these people pointing at their heads? Let me see if you have got your hat on the wrong way round.” She leaned forward and inspected Emily gravely, who was driving on with the obstinacy of a breakwater against the flow of traffic:

      “No, my dear, your hat is just right. I really don’t understand these uncouth people.” She leaned back and was quiet again.

      As a consequence of Emily’s shortsightedness, it had become an increasing occurence at home, especially when she was in a hurry, that she would put her hat, which was decorated with flowers and bows, on the wrong way round. This tended to lend her a somewhat bizarre and eccentric appearance, and it would provoke laughter among those disrespectful people, who knew nothing of her glorious past as the head of a large girls’ boarding school.

      The next car that came towards Emily and Agatha whizzed so close and so quickly past their open car-window, that the pink ribbons on Agatha’s light green spring hat began to flutter in the passing wind. The driver thundered right by them, which he wasn’t expecting, and with one hand he wrenched the steering wheel around, so that he just managed to get through the narrow gap, while with the other he tore at his hair in a melodramatic style.

      At the same time another car hissed past on Emily's left side, and the driver shouted something loud and menacing. The sound of his voice woke Enzo….He glanced out the window and could see what was wrong. He immediately upped Il Santo Antonio’s cut of his profit share, and, so as to give the meritorious saint a clear chance to continue his blessed work, he called out to the two ladies; first of all to stop and then to move across as quickly as possible into the right-hand lane when there was a gap in the traffic.

      Shame-faced, Emily complied. However in her head she placed

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