The fountain of
youth
by Jilliana
Ranicar-Breese
I recall in
1986 meeting the charming Italian filmmaker
Sergio Scapagnini at Portobello, who was creating
co-productions with Indian filmmakers. He was
interested in my pre-cinema items. Little did I
know then that he was insincere.
He introduced us to his lovely nephew who was
living in London. He, in turn, became friendly
with my husband Martin who helped him out of a
difficult situation which involved the police.
Sergio phoned from Naples and invited us to his
summer retreat in the nearby island of Procida.
It was August and airline prices were sky high
but it seemed a genuine friendly sincere
invitation so we accepted.
We felt something was wrong when Sergio failed to
meet us at our final destination, the island of
Procida and discovered he was hosting a party but
not for our arrival!
We were introduced to his stand-offish elegant
wife and showed the small bedroom where we would
be staying, so we thought!
We slept peacfully and had breakfast in the large
modern kitchen. I remember it was self service
with rich wrapped pastries.
Then Sergio insisted we must return to Naples
We insisted we wanted to stay where we were only
to learn it was his
mother-in-law’s bedroom and she would be
arriving the next day. His wife turned out to be
a princess!
It was obvious that Sergio was a kept husband and
she pulled the puppet strings. We had to leave
….
Enter the delightful rotund Mario Raffone with an
elegant artistic house and a spare bedroom. He
was a print dealer in Naples and only came with
his wife, like most Neopolitans, to Procida at
the weekend.
We stayed for about a week and one morning
visiting Sergio discovered we had to pay for the
room. Mario was too embarrassed to ask us for the
rent and so left it to the insincere Sergio to
inform us. Mario proudly showed us an ‘interiors’
article on his house. Years later I was to meet
the Moroccan photographer in Tangier who worked
exclusively for the magazine.
We paid Sergio by cheque as it was an unexpected
expense to pay Mario and told Sergio in no
uncertain words what a swine he was!
The story of Mario Raffone is written in the
vignette ‘See Naples and die’.
Written
in Nightingale 22/11/24.
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