Confessions from a Package Tour (Rosie Dixon, Book 5) by Rosie Dixon

Author:Rosie Dixon
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007544561
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-01-08T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

But the palazzo does not belong to Mr and Mrs Hiram Otiswater Junior. Nor to Spinola Spaghetti. Nor to Nutter Normanton, leader of ‘Kipper’. Nor to Albert Drudd. Nor to Baron Von Volestrangler. It does not even belong to Prince Sergio di Ponsi who sold it to the Italian Government before opening a chip shop in Bootle. The man we thought was Prince di Ponsi was an imposter. Shocking, isn’t it? Apparently, he sold the palazzo – which, incidentally, is sinking faster than the Italian economy – to six different people in the space of one week. And the Bridge of Sighs. And fourteen gondolas. He was also negotiating for the sale of the Doge’s palace to a well-known British holiday consortium but they went bankrupt just before completion.

All I can do is comfort myself that the man never completely fooled me. When he took my panties and left me to pay for the gondola I began to think that this was not the behaviour of a typical Italian nobleman. If our love-making had been allowed to continue, I know that I would have been forced to ask him more questions about his mother.

One of the many tragic aftermaths of our Venetian blind – as somebody wittily describes it – is that my film career collapses in ruins. Spinola Spaghetti is arrested for having sexual intercourse with a miner – yes, that is right. A miner, not a minor. One of those people who digs up coal. Of course, it is all very shocking. I realised that he was a bit funny but this side of his nature was never revealed to me. The artistic temperament is a very difficult thing to come to grips with. Fortunately, in a way, there are so many things happening that I don’t have the opportunity to brood. By the time we have got everyone out of prison and back on the coach I can hardly remember the details of my arduous rehearsal with Signior Spaghetti – just as well, really.

I must say, I have to hand it to Penny for the way she deals with the police chief. I wait outside his office so I don’t know what passes between them, but when she comes out, he is crying – well, not exactly crying. There are tears in his eyes and he has to cling on to the back of a chair for support. He has obviously been very moved by what she has said to him. I will always remember how he waves weakly and sinks out of sight behind his rolltop desk.

‘Change of plan,’ says Penny as we survey our silent charges and a guard of forty-eight armed carabinieri – I mean that they are carrying guns, not that they have forty-six more arms than the rest of us – escort the coach across the border into Yugoslavia. ‘The Chief of Police suggested that it would be a good idea if we found another way of getting home rather than coming back through Italy.

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