I had forgotten how much Northern and Southern Italy vary in attitude, appearance and affluence. After a cosy three nights in the posh surroundings of Florence, I headed down to Naples and the minute I got off the train I could see that I had entered another world. Florence had been welcoming to the English speaking visitor (aware no doubt of the extra wealth they were bringing to the city. As if a massive collection of priceless paintings isnÂ’t wealth enough) and signs and announcements were often bi-lingual. Not in Naples. And Naples was (even from the train station), clearly a much rougher and readier place. Things seemed darker, more boisterous, more frightening and if anyone had been walking around showing off that they had a priceless medieval painting in their luggage (which as you know I definitely havenÂ’t) might very soon have found himself lacking a suitcase and possibly also a head.
Anyone in their right minds would prefer the life and passion of Naples to the pretension and conservatism of Florence, but I was momentarily confused. As if I had been plunged into a cold bath having just got out of a hot one. Three nights in Florence and IÂ’d become a softy and I was scared of these Southern hard men. It would pass, but for the moment I wanted to get somewhere safer and got on a train to Pompeii.
I was perhaps being paranoid and stereotyping an entire town, though when I told an Italianophile friend that I was on the way to Naples she had said that I must keep all my possessions hidden from view and not carry a bag or I would be targeted by a mugger on a moped. She added that it was her favourite place in Italy. I could see why.
Such thoughts of Neapolitan criminality did remind me of something that had happened to me and Geoff Quigley in Naples eighteen years ago. We had been staying at a youth hostel and were on our way back to the train station (with bags in view, were we mad?), when a car pulled up beside us. An anxious middle aged man with big teeth and thick glasses (at the time my impression was that he looked exactly like a Dick Emery character. He even had that spiky wig-like hair, though thinking about it he may have been in disguise) was at the wheel. The driverÂ’s side window had clearly been smashed. He was distraught. He worked out we were English and then told us a story about how his car had been broken into and he had stupidly left his wallet and his passport in the glove box and it had all been stolen. This was stupid. Naples is full of criminals. What was he thinking?
The thing was that he was a pilot and had to get to Rome for a flight, but he had no money for the petrol. The only thing of value he had was a Rolex watch. He told us if we took it to a shop they would give us a thousand pounds for it, but as he was in such a hurry he would take a couple of hundred from us. Anyone could see immediately that this was an eight hundred pound profit! How could we lose?
Now me and Geoff Quigley were stupid and naïve back then (and the more time I spend here thinking about what we got up to and what scrapes we ended up in, the more stupid I realise we were- we ate uncooked beans for God’s sake and were sick for days. We were that stupid. That’s a great story by the way. I can’t remember if I’ve told it already. I know I did it for one of the papers recently), but we were not that stupid. Luckily even had we been that stupid we didn’t have anything like that amount of money on us and couldn’t have got hold of it. So his “clever” charade was wasted on us. I remembering laughing at the fact that he was aware he could get a thousand pounds for the watch in a jeweller’s shop, but still chose to attempt to sell it to two backpackers. And the fact that such a nervy, strange man with such appalling eye sight could be a pilot (and surely if he was he only needed to get to Naples airport and one of his pilot friends would give him a lift to Rome).
It would be interesting to know his real story and whether this ruse ever worked on anyone, Whether the car had a broken window because heÂ’d been the one to break it, so that he could steal it. Whether he actually was Dick Emery trying out a new character for a series that never happened due to his unfortunate death (Emery may already have been dead at this point, but that would surely explain his nervousness and impatience). I hope heÂ’s doing OK. Life must be hard for a conman so poor that he canÂ’t even fool the 18 year old Richard Herring and Geoffrey Quigley. If I bump into him again this year I might just buy his fake Rolex for old timeÂ’s sake. Just to make sure heÂ’s doing OK. You know if I recognise him.
But he was a master of disguise.
