A feast for the senses

A photograph in Shirley Hazzard's memoir, Greene onCapri, shows her friend Graham Greene at their favouriterestaurant on the island in 1987. The English writer sits at acorner table against a rustic wall hung with copper pans andsmiles, presumably at Hazzard and her husband, Francis Steegmuller.With Greene's companion, they made a foursome "at our firesidetable in the inner room at Gemma's restaurant" for many years. Having savoured Hazzard's account of an exotic, elegant,literary life from another age, I had a real taste of it in theearly autumn of 06. At the corner table under the shining copperat Da Gemma, I shared a pitcher of wine, a margherita pizza fromthe ancient woodfired oven and shellfish-studded pasta with myhusband and Hazzard, a friend from our days of living in NewYork. The scene was incomplete because Gemma, Greene and most recentlySteegmuller had died. The conversation might have been lesserudite. But we had the great fortune of visiting Capri with awoman whose knowledge of the island is intimate andintelligent. Advertisement: Story continues below Hazzard, the author of acclaimed novels such as The Transitof Venus and The Great Fire, has been visiting Caprifor 50 years since she was an Australian expatriate seconded fromthe United Nations in New York to war-savaged Naples. With Steegmuller, an American writer and translator, she livedbetween New York and, in spring and autumn - avoiding summer'scrowds and winter's desolation - Capri and Naples. She has kept upthe rhythm since his death years ago. Much of her writing hasbeen done in Italy, away from "the surf" of Manhattan, and some isset there. Our journey together began in Rome where, appropriately, shestayed above the Spanish Steps in her usual room at the HasslerHotel, while we found our place at the bottom of the steps Rosetta Stone Italian in themore modest Hotel Madrid. Together we walked through the late duskto her local, old-Rome restaurants, where the food and staff neverchange: Otello, Nino and Caffe del Greco, a favourite with Casanovaafter its opening in 1760 and now with the Japanese. We explored the city with The Companion Guide to Rome,Georgina Masson's 1965 (and since updated) book, given to us byHazzard as the best authority. Often she dropped notes at our hotelabout the evening's plans or an "essential" - a visit to the churchof San Clemente ("a self-contained history of Rome"). She wasright: after a chat with the Irish Dominican fathers in the living11th-century basilica, we descended into the 4th- and 1st-centuryplaces of worship below. The Little Sisters of the Lamb sang theirharmonic prayers for us at the neighbouring convent. One morning Hazzard's regular driver packed us all into his carand headed south. Hazzard kept up a stream of stories: from theAbbey of Monte Cassino, where hundreds of civilians were killedduring air raids in 19, to the trained bagsnatchers of Torre delGreco outside Naples. "If you carry a camera, I will not be responsible," she warned.Steegmuller once published an account of his own violent mugging inNaples. Peter Robb, the Australian author of Midnight inSicily, had groaned when I told him we were headed for Naples.He is working on a book about the city - long associated withorganised crime, poverty and southern rawness - and noted "adramatic shift in its equilibrium lately". Crowded jails hadreleased their murderers; cheap cocaine was fuelling teenage gangs;tourists were being caught in crossfire.

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