Rancid Pansies (15 page)

For once Benedetti keeps silent as though calculating that my own wordless surprise is best allowed to speak for itself. Despite myself I am already trying to visualise how this space can be best adapted to the Samper style of living, my initial resistance to the house admittedly lessened by finding it in such good internal repair. Going ahead while opening
windows
Benedetti leads the way up the staircase to the first floor. This, too, has been unfussily restored. The plasterwork on the white walls is obviously all new, and without any of the tricksy ‘antiquing’ lapses of taste such as individual stones arbitrarily left unplastered and carefully picked out. There are three bedrooms, the principal being spacious enough to accommodate easily even a bed the size of the one in
Crendlesham
Hall that Adrian and I shared at weekends and in which the sleeping Josh practically disappeared on the night of the Great Puke – as I now think of that literally fatal evening. The two bathrooms are unfinished, presumably awaiting
somebody’s
choice of tiles and fitments. The floor is cement, the plumbing connections all ready. A smaller flight of stairs leads to the attic. Great stretches of raw cement floor. The walls end abruptly just above the lintels of the window frames. Around them stands a rusty line of ‘cristi’, the extensible builder’s props whose shape suggests crucifixion to the jocular mind, supporting four-by-twos of rough pine to which the tin roof is nailed, pitched slightly higher at the back to shed the rain. Here the walls’ stonework is hidden behind the modern ribbed terra-cotta slabs called
tabelle
, but to judge from the window embrasures without increasing the thickness of the walls. H’m.

‘Okay,’ I say at last as we go back downstairs. ‘What’s the story?’

‘A tale indeed. A builder from Lucca bought this house at about the same time as you bought yours. I believe he was a distant relative of the old
contadini
who owned it. He had no intention of living here himself. He bought it speculatively when house prices in this area were beginning to rise rapidly. It was in pretty shabby condition. Shall we say in that respect it was not unlike la signora Marta’s house before she took up residence at Le Roccie?’

What does he mean, before? On that illicit visit last summer with Baggy and Dumpy Benedetti must have seen for himself that Marta’s residence in the house had changed nothing. A couple of rooms had been whitewashed and a few sackfuls of cobwebs had been removed, but only because the place had been used as a set for shooting some interiors for Pacini’s film. ‘I can imagine,’ I say.

‘So this builder was hoping to restore it and sell it to
foreigners
but unfortunately …’

‘… he ran out of money?’

‘No, although I agree that’s what so often happens. He simply did the project without getting the necessary planning
permissions
. He claimed he was just doing some necessary repairs.’

‘Expensive, but not particularly fatal.’

‘True. But then he fell foul of the Belle Arti, or the Beni
Culturali
as we have to remember to call them these days. He added that top floor, which is inauthentic.’

‘I thought those
tabelle
upstairs were suggestive. The stonework up there’s just cladding.’

Benedetti eyes me with mock admiration. ‘I pity the poor agent who tries to pull the wool over signor Samper’s eyes. He stands no chance. When we go outside I think you’ll agree the builder did a pretty good job of matching the stonework of the top storey with the rest of the house but yes, when you see those modern
forati
on the inside up there you realise at once what he’s done.’

‘So basically he did everything
abusivamente
.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And the inevitable moment came when the Comune stopped him working?’

‘Correct. The whole site was embargoed four years ago.
Bloccato
. He was allowed to put on a temporary roof to
protect
it, that was all. They gave him the opportunity to
demolish
the top floor and restore the original roof but he must have thought he’d already spent too much. He decided to leave everything as it was and hope for an amnesty.’

Ah, that made sense. Like everything else the builder had done, it was a calculated risk. Every so often the Italian
government
declares an
amnestia
on illegal buildings and they acquire a
condono edilizia
, or a pardon. At the cost of a token fine the building suddenly becomes legal. In this case the builder had no doubt reckoned the time he might have to wait until the next amnesty against the money he’d already spent and the ever-increasing theoretical market value of the
property
itself, and decided to bet on it. Since there hasn’t been an
amnestia
recently and I’m here as a potential buyer, he has obviously lost his wager.

‘But if the place is still embargoed,’ I point out in a musing sort of way, ‘he can’t sell it and no one can buy it.’

‘
Teoricamente
. In theory, that’s true.’ Benedetti eyes me again, a prep-school master attempting to disguise an indecent proposal behind a meaningful hint. But old lightning-brain Samper has long seen it coming. Almost from the start the air has been laden with the gamey scent of a deal.

‘Mm,’ I say. ‘So I officially endorse the Diana story, the Comune lifts the embargo on condition that the builder sells – which I bet he will since his money’s been locked up for a good few years now and he must be sick of the trouble this place has caused him – and I get first refusal. Probably several refusals. What’s he asking?’

‘Four hundred thousand.’

‘Euros? He must be joking. An entire floor to demolish, a
new roof to put on, a
pavimento
to lay outside, a garage to build, bathrooms to install, kitchen to equip. What about
services
? I can see it’s plumbed and wired.’

‘Well, of course they all have to be connected. There’s mains sewerage and even gas in the middle of the road.’

‘Yes, a good hundred metres away. Phone? No visible
landlines
. You’re talking a lot of money and a great deal of time and bureaucratic nightmare to make this place fully habitable. And still he wants four hundred thousand?’ Cool hand
Samper
, playing the seasoned expert, chooses the right dismissive tone. ‘Not a cat in hell’s chance. Shall we go back to town and get a coffee?’

In silence Benedetti locks up and leads the way back to his monster wagon. ‘I’m sure the sum being asked is
trattabile
, by the way,’ he adds.

‘Negotiable? I should hope it was.’

‘But a person as enviably
aggiornato
as yourself,’ he says as I once again strap myself fatalistically into his all-terrain
juggernaut
, ‘will of course be aware how much in demand
isolated
properties with a stupendous view like this one are.’ The prep-school master, his initial advances rebuffed, resorts to wheedling and threats.

‘If by up-to-date you mean that I’ll have heard the wild rumours about Russian mafiosi buying properties around here with attaché cases stuffed with cash, then yes. But people to whom money is no object don’t buy unfinished houses with tin roofs, do they? They go upmarket for grandees’ villas with swimming pools and tennis courts. And most of the
prospective
buyers of houses like this one have just enough sense to work out that there will be a long way to go before they can finally let themselves and their kids through the front door for a family holiday. And they also may not know there are ways of minimising costs and hustling things along.’ Now it’s my turn to give him a meaningful look, schoolboy hinting that he might come across if it were made worth his while in terms of exam results. We all have our price, do we not?

We are barging back down the mountainside along the
narrow
winding lane with dangling brambles from the high banks on either side slapping the car’s flanks like quirts. For one appalling moment, just as we are about to enter a blind S-bend, Benedetti takes his eyes off the road to give me a placid leer.

‘I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised, signor Samper, at how relaxed and easy this process could be. These little
transactions
are two-way affairs, aren’t they? A bit of give and take on both sides?’

I begin to wonder if at some time in the past Benedetti might actually have been a schoolteacher. He has all the moves.